To the Editor:
“Who Should Provide Anesthesia Care?”
(editorial, Sept. 7) proposes allowing nurses to deliver anesthesia
without the supervision of any doctor. Both of the studies cited to
support this approach have been financed by the American Association of
Nurse Anesthetists.
When did The New York Times start taking policy positions based on
purchased research? If the editorial page is going to take a position,
your readers deserve some degree of critical and impartial analysis.
The irony is that the remarkable safety of anesthesia underlying the
assumption that anyone can do it is purely a result of physicians’
innovation. Without physicians, patients are unpredictably put in
danger, and further advances are impossible.
Alexander Hannenberg
President, American Society of Anesthesiologists
Newton, Mass., Sept. 8, 2010
Note from KBJ: The New York Times employs Paul Krugman. That's all you need to know about the newspaper's intellectual honesty.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 