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“Because we specialize in surgery of pediatric patients with congenital heart disease, we are very, very
familiar with the problems that can occur, and we
can better anticipate and treat the problems because
we see them so often.”
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Dr. Dean B. Andropoulos
Medical Director of Pediatric Cardiovascular
Anesthesiology
Texas Children's Heart Center
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ANESTHESIOLOGISTS
Texas Children’s Heart Center is home to one of the
nation’s few programs dedicated exclusively to clinical
care, education and research in pediatric cardiovascular
anesthesia. Children who undergo heart procedures here are
monitored by a cardiovascular anesthesiology team that
specializes in pediatric congenital heart disease.
Texas Children’s has one of the very few pediatric heart
programs in the world with a full-time team of pediatric
cardiac anesthesiologists.
The
day before surgery, parents meet their child’s anesthesiologist,
who explains in detail the anesthetic procedures. For
most surgeries, the child is relaxed before surgery with
a sedative given orally or through an intravenous line
(IV).
The
child then goes into deep sleep under a flavored general anesthetic,
which he or she selects the day before surgery. The child
receives an additional anesthetic through an IV, by inhaling
anesthetic gas or a combination of both. After the child
is asleep, his or her breathing is assisted by a breathing
tube placed through the nose or mouth into the lungs.
The primary role of the cardiac anesthesiology
team is to administer anesthetics to ensure the child
is asleep and has no awareness during
surgery. The team
monitors more than 20 different functions of the child’s
body.
“We literally watch every heartbeat and every breath
of the patient,” said Dr. Dean Andropoulos, director of
pediatric cardiovascular anesthesiology at Texas Children's. “We monitor
blood pressure, oxygen saturation in the blood, the child’s
temperature, heart function and the levels of the anesthetic
agents, among other things.”
The anesthesiologist monitors the child
from the preoperative evaluation until the child is stabilized
in the intensive care unit after surgery.
“A lot of parents don’t realize that we are with
the child in every second immediately before, during and
after the surgery,” Dr. Andropoulos said.
The presence of the anesthesiology team ensures every
patient who comes into cardiac surgery at the Heart Center
is cared for by an anesthesiologist with lengthy specialty
training and expertise in congenital heart disease.
