No such thing as normal

[摘要] ANAESTHETISTS don't have many drugs. And those we have are steadily being taken away. We used to have an effective antiemetic — not that any antiemetic is really effective, but droperidol was the best we had. Maintenance doses for psychosis caused prolonged QT syndrome and it had to go. It was cheap and we anaesthetists used only a tiny dose once or twice per patient, so it was not worth making and we don't have it any more. We used to have methoxamine, an α-agonist useful for treating acute hypotension: gone —uneconomic. We replaced it with an alternative, metaraminol, but now that and another α-agonist, phenylephrine, are in short supply so we are urged to use them only when essential. Is that when the systolic blood pressure is 81 mmHg? Or should we wait until it's 79 mmHg?

[学科分类] 卫生学