As a bit of a TrekyI like to introduce these blogs with a Star Wars type intro, but our communications manager is notTreky at all, and usually edits my sci-fi innuendo’s out. We have a bit of good humoured banter about this. Along with the banter I have with staff, there are a number of other privileges that being the president brings. Perhaps one of the greatest is meeting and working with those who I otherwise wouldn’t.

I’d like to give you an example of a colleague who’s impressed me and whom I have personally been very honoured to work with. My first contact with this person was as a medical student on a surgical run with a somewhat eccentric professor of surgery who, during the course of the operation, caused all sorts of haemodynamic strife. He quite possibly demonstrated all the surgical causes of instability in the COVER ABC A SWIFT CHECK algorithm which at that time wasn’t invented.

The anaesthetist was a very cool calm and collected Kaye Ottaway. She impressed me then and impresses me now. Kaye has soldiered away on behalf of the anaesthetic community and NZSA for many years. This year in conjunction with the Private Practice Committee she has lead the revised RVG and along with another group, she has convened the workshops run in tandem with the OASIS meeting. Thank you Kaye.

Another one of these people is Douglas Mein, an anaesthetist working in Wellington who has an interest in obstetrics. It’s more than an interest as Douglas is championing an obstetric network similar to the PAN-NZ that Indu Kapoor is promoting for paediatric anaesthesia.

Douglas has raised with me an interesting consent issue that has been briefly alluded to in a recent Health Disability Commissioner case that some of you may have read through; case 13HDC00515, inadequate anaesthesia for emergency caesarean section. One of the criticisms of the anaesthetist in the case was that he over-emphasised death as a risk of general anaesthesia. I do not wish to make judgement on this aspect of the case but rather initiate discussion around the topic.

Andrew Love, a very experienced and well respected anaesthetistfrom Waitemata Health, and former clinical director of the department there, was invited to comment as an expert witness. He commented, “It is unusual in New Zealand practice for death to be mentioned as a possible complication of anaesthesia for a healthy woman having an emergency caesarean section”.

Interestingly both Douglas and I would not agree with this statement. I have spoken to Andrew about this and this reflects practice where he works. He conducted an informal poll himself in preparation for his appearance. Having said this, both Douglas and I would not emphasise this complication, and in all honesty probably only mention it in passing. But,we both felt that consent would be incomplete if we did not mention it on the basis that it is a severe complication albeit exceedingly rare-going back to Rogers vs Whitaker, eye case in 1992. The HDC covers the topic in paragraph 133 of his report on the recent case.

The case highlights that there are differing practices in New Zealand. We’re interested in gathering information on differing practices at some stage so that we can feed it back to the HDC. Do comment below or flick me an email with your thoughts.

There are many people in our community striving to better anaesthesia in New Zealand. As well as attending conferences recently, I’ve been attending professional body meetings, and there are alwaysa number of teleconferences occurring. I recently sat in on the Overseas Aid Sub-committee meeting. This group tends to fly under the radar for most of us. I was struck by their high calibre and thoughtfulness.Where is this leading?

Representing our community

We’ve been building the Linkperson network and also have opportunities on our executive committee. If you are interested in contributing to the anaesthetic community and in the opportunity to rub shoulders with colleagues such as I have mentioned above,then please email me. There’s no denying committee work does involve extra time and effort but if you enjoy a challenge and want to contribute then it can be satisfying work. I thank the NZSA committee and all our helpers for their work this year.

The Beehive

While friends of mine were going to various rock concerts around the country in November (and sharing their photos on social media), my big gigs were to visit the Minister of Health Hon. Jonathan Coleman and the Shadow Minister Hon. Annette King at parliament.

Both meetings covered a wide range of topics relevant to anaesthesia. We talked about various areas of the Draft National Health and several topics including end of life care, scope of practice, clinical leadership and maldistribution in the anaesthesia workforce. I appreciated that they could fit me into their busy schedules and we plan to catch up a couple of times a year. The meetings are a good opportunity to brief politicians about what is both important to, and happening in, anaesthesia, and for us to find out their priorities.

Endoscopy survey

We are doing a quick survey of members and department heads on current endoscopy services and anaesthetist involvement in this looking to the future. It’s part of planning for the national bowel cancer screening programme. Your feedback will be used to inform decisions by the advisory group looking at this. You’ll be getting an email from Survey Monkey and we would appreciate your input. For more info about this see our page under Member’s Only.

Executive Committee Meeting

At our November meeting we decided to give free membership to trainees for 2016 (for those not wanting the AIC Journal). Invoices for membership in 2016 have been sent out with our annual Membership Letter. We appreciate your ongoing support so that we can carry out our advocacy and other work for anaesthesia. We look forward to your continued support and ask you to please encourage your non-member colleagues to join.

In other news …

If you are looking for a Christmas book to read I recently stumbled across a good one. “The 100-year-old man who climbed out the window and disappeared” by Jonas Jonasson. An absolutely delightful read-a Scandinavian version of Forrest Gump.

Christmas greetings and best wishes for the holiday season.

Once again, may the force be with you. David