Preface

Anesthesia Equipment Simplified is the result of an idea that came to us during a discussion on how resident anesthesiologists have had such a hard time understanding how anesthesia equipment works, or not even acknowledging that the things we use every day of our clinical career are anything more than “black boxes” that are not meant to be understood by those who rely on them.

This is partially understandable, since there is such a myriad of knowledge and skill to obtain during one's residency. The resident physician anesthesiologist or student nurse anesthetist is busy studying subjects more related to life science and medicine in general. Physiology, anatomy, and pharmacology, the triad upon which our specialty is based, are things that we have at least some comfort level from our previous years of study; there are no classes in medical school on engineering.

It is in this light that we wrote Anesthesia Equipment Simplified: to make the understanding of the tools of our trades simpler for resident physicians, student nurse anesthetists, medical students, or anyone else who wants to really learn how these devices work.