Top all-time · #25253
Richard Novak
Personal blog · theanesthesiaconsultant.comhealth
Richard Novak writes The anesthesia consultant, a personal blog at theanesthesiaconsultant.com about health. Since 2020, 3 different Hacker News readers have linked it 3 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-07, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (2) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this anaesthesia blog for posts on anaesthesia practice and history, such as the use of intravenous caffeine during surgery and how anaesthesia has become safer over time.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 2 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
The Anesthesia Consultant is written by Richard Novak MD, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University. Content is for both laypeople and medical specialists.
What Hacker News says?
Actually, anesthesiologists are middle of the pac in regards to malpractice. Whenever someone quotes income levels for physicians, it's usually after all expenses, including malpractice. It really doesn't matter how much a doctor pays in malpractice, it's what their net income is after. Neurosurgeons pay close to $100k / year, but make $500k+. Anyway, anesthesia is much safer than 30 years ago https://theanesthesiac…
Comment linking /do-anesthesiologists-have-the-highest-malpractice-insurance-rates/
on “Agonising surgery paved the way for anaesthetics”Submitted Doctors in the History of Anesthesia as a story · 2 points
HN discussionDidn’t realise caffeine was used IV in anesthesia. Apparently it speeds up awakening (which makes sense to me as a non-medic). https://theanesthesiaconsultant.com/2019/06/18/intravenous-c... But the story in OP is that the patient received caffeine IV at the beginning of the surgery (inducing severe anxiety). Does anyone know why you would do this?
Comment linking /2019/06/18/intravenous-caffeine-following-general-anesthesia/
on “Intravenous Caffeine”