September 22, 1998
A small monitor that measures electric activity in the brain is helping anesthesiologists calibrate the exact amount of drugs needed to keep patients from waking up during surgery. Matching the anesthesia more closely to the patient also allows doctors to use less, allowing patients to awake sooner and recover more quickly. "Most anesthesiologists feel the best thing about this is the ability to very precisely adjust anesthesia to the individual patient," said Dr. Joseph H. McIsaac, a staff anesthesiologist at Hartford Hospital and the Connecticut Children's Medical Center who began using the monitor in May. "There is less nausea and vomiting, less pain, you get home faster and you feel better."
June 2, 2013
During the Revolutionary War, a typical doctor's kit included two knives, a pair of scissors, a tourniquet and a hacksaw for performing amputations. In the 19th century, the amputation procedure was a bit more advanced. "This chain saw has a little handle where the handle unclips. Then you latch a needle to it and then insert the needle down behind the bone. Then you put the handle back on and - zip, zip, zip - it took just a few seconds," says Andrea Rapacz of the Connecticut Historical Society.
June 13, 2011
Hypnosis, according to a new study, can help patients undergoing surgery. Professor Fabienne Roelants and Dr. Christine Watremez at the Cliniques Universitaires St. Luc, a hospital in Belgium, found that hypnosis, when used in combination with local anesthesia for breast cancer surgery, reduced the amount of time patients spent in recovery. Their results were presented Sunday at the European Anaesthesiology Congress in Amsterdam. In one study, 18 women underwent hypnosis and were given local anesthsia before undergoing breast cancer surgery and a group of 60 women did not have hypnosis and were given general anesthesia.
October 10, 2001
Charles R. Hamilton Jr. of Manchester, retired medical director of ambulatory services at Manchester Memorial Hospital, died Monday at home. He was 77. Hamilton, who was chief of anesthesia at Manchester Memorial for many years, was instrumental in coordinating the hospital's ambulatory services center in 1991. Before his retirement in December, he was the center's medical director. He established and was director of pulmonary medicine at Manchester Memorial for more than 17 years.
May 5, 1994
MEDBURY. Sawyer Eldredge Medbury, died May 2, 1994, in Brunswick, Ga., enroute to his summer home in Bridgton, Maine. Born in Putnam, Sept. 20, 1918, he was the son of the late Mary Stoddard Medbury and Raymond Sawyer Medbury. He was a graduate of Putnam High School, Brown University, and Yale Medical School, with internship and residency in anesthesia at Hartford Hospital. He served in the U.S. Navy as Chief of Anesthesia at Bethesda Naval Hospital, Bethesda, Md., 1946-1948. From 1948 to 1963 he served as Chief of Anesthesia at Windham Community Memorial Hospital, Willimantic.
February 24, 2008
COHEN, Benjamin, MD. Dr. Benjamin Cohen, much loved husband of Theresa (Beitzer) Cohen and longtime resident of West Hartford, died on Thursday (February 21, 2008) at the age of 90. The father of three children and eight grandchildren, he was Director of the Department of Anesthesia at Mount Sinai Hospital in Hartford from 1950 until the mid-1970s. After leaving Mt. Sinai, he joined the medical staff at Newington Children's Hosptial, where he worked until his retirement from the practice of medicine in 1981.