Clinically, the McGill Department of Anesthesia is concerned with provision of anesthetic care for patients undergoing surgery or diagnostic procedures. That means general, regional, local, and/or intravenous sedation (monitored anesthesia care).
Anesthesia is also involved in the organization of the Preoperative Clinic, Recovery Room, and Acute Pain Service. It has strong links with the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and Trauma Team Leadership programs. It is an integral part of the MUHC Pain Centre.
Anesthesia care will evolve in all of these areas to match advances in surgical technique and medicine (e.g. minimally invasive, robotics, micro and nano-technology, genomics) that permits treatment of increasingly sick patients with improved outcomes and quality of life.
The future evolution of the Department of Anesthesia will be largely shaped by the Surgical Mission and by developments within the McGill University hospital network (RUIS). It will also be impacted by the increasing role of anesthesiologists as “peri-operative physicians,” who are concerned with optimization of the patient prior to surgery, and the post-operative recovery process.
