Profs and Pints Nashville presents: “An Evening on Anesthesia,” at look at the history, use, and physiological workings of medicine’s efforts to lessen our awareness of pain, with Dr. Jordan Yokley, assistant professor of anesthesiology at Vanderbilt University and pediatric anesthesiologist at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital.
Many of us who have undergone surgery were given anesthesia without knowing much about what it is or how it works. Often we’re told we’re being put under and then, presto, find ourselves waking up, with everything that happened between those two points in time being a complete mystery.
Gain a better understanding of anesthesia, how it’s administered, and how it affects our minds and bodies with the help of Dr. Jordan Yokley of Vanderbilt University. His more than 10 years of working with anesthesia span stateside obstetric and trauma operating rooms, medical stations for soldiers in the deserts of Afghanistan, and medical facilities in Central America’s urban centers. His talk will leave you wishing you’d previously been more curious about what happens when anesthesiologists cause the lights to go out.
Dr. Yokley will trace anesthesia’s origins and evolution, showing how far we’ve come since the when people went into surgery with, at best, a swig of whiskey and a bullet or leather strap to bite on. You’ll learn how pioneers in the field gathered audiences in grand halls for demonstrations of “painless survival surgery” carried out by administering ether, nitrous, or other volatile anesthetics. You’ll hear how epidural anesthesia initially involved the injection of high doses of cocaine into patients’ backs, and how today’s commonly used muscle relaxants arose from South American expeditions’ encounters with poison arrows tipped with plant-based, paralysis-inducing substances.
Pulling back the curtain on how anesthesiologists operate, Dr. Yokley will discuss how they weigh risks and benefits in trying to administer the right mix of medicines to achieve some, or all, of the following goals: Controlling anxiousness, blood pressure, and pain, suppressing movement and reflexes, and bringing about losses of sensation and memory recall.
You’ll leave with a better understanding of medical history and the care you might receive down the road. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)