A PERSPECTIVE ON MONITORING IN ANESTHESIA PRACTICE

Monitoring has made great strides in the last half century. It enables us to titrate drugs to the desired effect, warns us of impending dang er,and helps with the diagnosis of problems confronting our patients. Beyond that it has enormously increased our understanding of anestheti c pathophysiology. Modern monitors, however, are still focused on sing le variables; they do not provide the panoramic view offered by our se nses. They do not give data on the patient's appearance, movement, or position. The clinician incorporates that type of information with the data provided by the monitors and melds that with a much richer infor mation about the system in which he operates, the colleagues with whom he works and the circumstances that affect his patient. Even though w e appreciate the importance of that wealth of information,we lack scie ntific tools to measure its value.