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Google also is a friend...OPA's are designed to be placed in the unconscious patient. They were used first as an adjunct to an anesthesiologist when the patient is "completely relaxed or chemically paralyzed". It is a 'noxious' stimuli in the awake and altered patient who will either gag, vomit, chew or obstruct their airway when the OPA pushes their tongue posterior and inferior since they have maintenence of muscle (oral) tone...the NPA has no such evel side effects and can be placed in any type of patient, even those with massive facial injuries. I have yet to meet a patient (conscious or not), that I could not BVM with just an NPA for adequate ventilation......my backround is not anesthesia but is Trauma surgery and surgical critical care...I see the worst of the worst and I haven't used an OPA since 1995, just NPA's.
ss
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'Revel in action, translate perceptions into instant judgements, and these into actions that are irrevocable, monumentous and dreadful - all this with lightning speed, in conditions of great stress and in an environment of high tension:what is expected of "us" is the impossible, yet we deliver just that.
(adapted from: Sherwin B. Nuland, MD, surgeon and author: The Wisdom of the Body, 1997 )
Education is the anti-ignorance we all need to better treat our patients. ss, 2008.
The blade is so sharp that the incision is perfect. They don't realize they've been cut until they're out of the fight: A Surgeon Warrior. I use a knife to defend life and to save it. ss (aka traumadoc)
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