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Anaesthetists are highly trained specialists whose skills are widely used in patient care. While our major role is in providing anaesthesia during surgery, this role is ever widening and includes radiology or radio-therapy procedures, preparation of surgical patients, post-operative pain relief and acute or chronic pain management. You can find us in operating theatres, intensive care units, accident and emergency departments, obstetric units, dentistry, and even psychiatry. We are also widely involved in teaching and training undergraduate medical students, postgraduates, nurses and many other paramedics.

This makes anaesthetists particularly well-qualified to contribute to almost any decision-making which impacts on the delivery of health care services to people in New Zealand. The New Zealand Society of Anaesthetists welcomes the opportunity to contribute via submissions or other appropriate forms of feedback.

NZSA on the cover of Anesthesiology

The contribution by New Zealand and Australian societies and colleges, and grants by government organisations, for funding anaesthesia research and education was featured in the October 2011 issue of the American Society of Anesthesiologists' journal Anesthesiology.

Authors Andrew Davidson and Shiroh Isono say that because competition for funding from within Japan is so keen and places so limited, young Japanese anaesthetists study in leading research laboratories outside Japan and are supported by ANZCA and the US National Institutes of Health to fulfil their research ambitions. They would like to see the JSA establish an education and research system of its own similar to the one established by the Foundation for Anaesthesia Education and Research (FAER) 25 years ago and which has been the model adopted by Australia and New Zealand to meet specific needs and opportunities for research in their respective countries.

The authors say that NZSA, ASA, ANZCA and ANZICS all recognise the importance of funding for small to moderate projects, scholarships and seed funding that can lead to Australian National Health and Medical Research Council and Health Research Council of New Zealand grants. These latter two organisations provide the most funding for major projects in their respective countries in anaesthesia, intensive care and pain medicine.

“A big tree does not always result from a big seed. Cultivating the big seed is costly and providing the best anaesthesia to patients depends on the time and individual’s abilities in addition to drugs and techniques available at that moment”, says Shiroh Isono. Intensive care physicians are addressing funding in a collaborative way by planning, seeking funding for, and coordinating, large investigator-driven trial groups. Clinical trial groups set up by ANZICS and ANZCA have increased clinical research capacity. The ANZICS CTG, which was established in 1994, engages emerging researchers, runs a mentor programme and all new projects must have at least one novice researcher on the trial management team. The ANZCA CTG was established in 2005 and both CTGs reach well beyond Australia and New Zealand in terms of their engagement in education and research, funding, and trials.

New Zealand and Australian colleges and societies are also mentioned in the article for the contribution that their funding makes to maintain the highly academic anaesthesia environment in Australia and New Zealand, which the article says is crucial to the launching the careers of highly successful researchers.

NZSA awards prizes for research and this year will once again allocate up to $20,000 in prizes at the Annual Scientific meeting that it runs in conjunction with ANZCA. The Society also supports programmes in the Pacific to help train anaesthetists, to provide equipment in hospitals there and assists with the deployment of anaesthetists to Pacific Rim countries when needed.

World Anaesthesia Day 16 October 2011

To mark the anniversary of the first successful demonstration of ether anaesthesia on October 16, 1846, BJA’s Editor-in-Chief, Charles S. Reilly, has selected a collection of 12 articles on the topic ‘Making Anaesthesia Practice Safer’ that have open online acccess throughout October. Read more here.

Penny & Hooper Supreme Court decision

Society President, Rob Carpenter, has written to members with advice on the Supreme Court decision on the Penny & Hooper case won by IRD.

Midwifery

Letter from Society President Rob Carpenter published in North & South September 2011 responding to midwifery article "A Failure to Deliver" published in North & South July 2011. Press release issued and Letter from the President published 21 August 2011 in reply to workforce article in Sunday Star Times.

NZCOM media release on the North & South August 2011 issue. NZSA has written a Letter to the Editor about the article.

Workforce

Press release about article in Sunday Star Times - President Rob Carpenter has written to the newspaper in reply to "Anaesthetist numbers create a headache" article it published on 14 August 2011.

NZSA press release on ARRG report by President Dr Rob Carpenter

Media reports following release of ARRG report

ARRG Report released by HWNZ on 31 May 2011

Summaries of the First Five Workforce Service Reviews

Rural general practice nurses considered for bonding scheme, next year
Rural general practice nursing will be considered for inclusion in the Government's graduate voluntary bonding scheme when the scheme is reviewed next year.

Doctors say bonded scheme hard to fulfil
Two trainee Blenheim doctors have highlighted the difficulties of meeting conditions of a Health Ministry scheme aimed at staffing rural hospitals and hard-to-fill specialties.

North Shore Hospital's planned new elective surgery block is likely to operate without trainee specialists and junior doctors in a bid to shorten delays for patients.
Some of the pilot scheme's main features include:
Paying the surgeons and anaesthetists a contract rate for each package of patient care.
Making the treating surgeon responsible for a patient from first assessment to the end of follow-up.
Limiting the medical staff to specialists - no house officers or registrars.

Christchurch earthquake

Message of Sympathy from AAGBI

Messages from NZSA's President, Rob Carpenter following the Christchurch earthquake

22 February

23 February

Civil Defence advice. More information.

Suspension of Avandia (rosiglitazone) from New Zealand market

Other news

Health Workforce New Zealand confirms New Zealand Centre of Excellence in Health Care Leadership 21/02/11.

$15 million investment in national health IT systemsannounced by the National Health IT Board on 3 December 2010.

After an extensive review, the ministerial advisory committee MARC (the Medicines Adverse Reactions Committee which makes recommendations on appropriate action to be taken on medicine safety issues), has, in conjunction with Medsafe, confirmed that the risks outweigh the benefits of using the prescription weight-loss drug sibutramine after preliminary results of a major study of 10,000 patients found that sibutramine raises the risk of heart attacks and strokes. The medicine has since been withdrawn by pharmaceutical company Abbott.  Sibutramine, which is sold under the brand name Reductil in New Zealand, was also withdrawn from sale in Australia, Canada and the United States recently and is estimated to have been used by 5000-6000 New Zealanders. Interview 1, Interview 2.

An expert panel will be assembled to help determine the future configuration of neurosurgical services in the South Island. Petition presented at Parliament.

Professor Alan Merry appointed as interim chair of the new Health Quality and Safety Commission. View press release here. 02/06/10.

Dr Graham Sharpe was interviewed by the Christchurch Press about the challenges of performing surgery on overweight patients, following his speech at the ANZCA annual conference which the paper says devoted an entire session to obesity, one of the major health problems facing New Zealand. 04/05/2010.

Dr Kim Jamieson interviewed by Radio Live on her career and the history of anaesthesia. 21/03/2010.

Sir Robert Macintosh was the second Professor of Anaesthetics in the world and inventor of the laryngoscope. Hear Dr Graham Sharpe interviewed about him. 16/03/2010