Physician Anesthesiologists Week Spotlights SafeVACare

An ASA release asking federal lawmakers to contact the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and urge them to protect Veterans by maintaining the physician anesthesiologist-led Anesthesia Care Team resulted in 848 online placements, including the LA Times, San Francisco Gate, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and The Detroit News, reaching more than 148 million people. “Surgery is inherently dangerous and removing highly trained physician anesthesiologists from the care of patients is wrong,” said ASA President Randall M. Clark, M.D., FASA. “It is particularly concerning for VA patients, many of whom are older, sicker and have conditions as a result of military service that put them at greater risk for complications during surgery.”

A letter to the editor written by John Mansell, M.D., FASA, president of the Wyoming Society of Anesthesiologists, was also published in the Gillette News Record (Gillette, Wyoming) and an op-ed by Amy Pearson, M.D., FASA, published on MedPage Today. (Login or subscription may be required.)

Other highlights in recognition of the week included:

• Thirteen proclamations recognizing the week from state governors in CT, FL, IL, IA, LA, MA, MI, MO, MS, NJ, OR, SC, and TX.
• Resolutions from Missouri State Sen. Mike Bernskoetter and Missouri State House Majority Floor Leader Dean Plocher.
• A resolution from California, including an address by Assemblymember Akilah Weber, M.D., an OB GYN physician, who said, “… anesthesiologists are the masters of intubation … We should all be extremely grateful for not only everything they had done prior to the pandemic, but the things they have done above and beyond during the pandemic to take care for our sickest patients.”

Additionally, ASA members from across the country spread the word on social media, including 1,565 tweets with over 5 million impressions and 185 uses of the #PhysAnesWk22 hashtag on Instagram.