So, you are frustrated with the anesthesiologists who are trying to inform the patients about a potentially devastating complication like blindness!
Let me ask you this: since you are frustrated, would you promise us that if a patient loses vision you would go straight to them and tell them that the blindness was actually a surgical complication and it's not an anesthetic complication?
Would you have the courage to go tell them that the main reason they became blind was that your surgery was too long or was because you lost too much blood?
I hope that your frustration with us does not prevent you from being straight forward with the patients when a bad outcome happens and I hope that you are not frustrated enough with us that you would lie to the patients and tell them that they became blind because of anesthesia (as I had heard with my own ears once before).
I think you are taking it personal and have not really read what I have written.
Point #1: They are stressing a single rare complication above all others while failing to mention much more likely and just as serious, if not more so, complications.
Point #2: No I would not claim it as a strictly surgical complication, because we don't know the exact etiology. We would however have accepted fault right away.
Point #3: We always let patients know how long the surgery would be and would admit that it may have played a role. I can remember over a dozen patients over the years who have refused surgery due to stated length of operation.
Point #4: As I have already stated, if you would have read, it is rare for us to lose more than 20-50 cc's on an ACDF and more than 200-250 cc's on a lumbar fusion. Fanatical for hemostasis. Not from hypotension either. Careful tissue handling and gentle bipolar cautery.
Point #5: My we are sensitive. I would not lie to a patient and the first complication I always mention is death.
I always include these things: Death, infection, continuation of pain, recurrence, non-union (if indicated), injury to recurrent laryngeal nerve (if indicated), hemorrhage, infection, injury to nerves or nerve roots, CSF leak, weakness, paralysis, blindness, instability, devastating neurologic complication, DVT, PE, stroke and MI. All of these in capital letters and I always ask if they have questions, if all of their questions are answered and if there is anything that I have not explained well. I go to greater length and pain than anyone else I know of.
In the end my frustration is the same. Trumpeting one rare complication above all others, while ignoring other more likely scenarios and doing it in holding. Why not do it in pre-op clinic where I can then have time to give them information, answer questions and ally fears of the patients and family members.
What they and the family hear right before going back is you can go blind and thats what the families tell me they think about the entire time in the waiting room.
Forgot to add that most of the folks who do this are CRNAs and they make it sound as if its commonplace.