From The AANA

All About Anesthesia  I want to point out the VERY FIRST PARAGRAPH from the link provided.

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What Is Anesthesia?
Anesthesia is freedom from pain. Each year, millions of people in the United States undergo some form of medical treatment requiring anesthesia. Anesthesia, in the hands of qualified professionals like Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists, is a safe and effective means of alleviating pain during nearly every type of medical procedure.
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Here it is again...  "ANESTHESIA IS FREEDOM FROM PAIN."  "Anesthesia is freedom from pain."  I can't repeat that enough!  Amnesia isn't FREEDOM FROM PAIN!  How many times do we have to hear/read stories from patients about screaming and writhing in pain?  How many times do we have to hear/read stories from nurses that talk about the enormous 'stimulation' (pain) that patients are subjected to under the premise that pain unremembered isn't pain.  So what if the AMNESIA doesn't work?  Pain is pain, whether the patient is 'sedated' (a misnomer) or not.  This is absolutely amazing.

So if the above statement from the AANA is correct then what is happening with our anesthesia providers?  Since when is unreliable amnesia considered pain relief?  To me this represents a complete and abject FAILURE on the part of these nurses to address the PRIMARY REASON FOR THEIR JOB!  "ANESTHESIA IS FREEDOM FROM PAIN"!  So it states in the very first sentence of the very first paragraph from the anesthesia nurses own web-site.

How do these nurses justify this kind of statement?  "Anesthesia, in the hands of qualified professionals like Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists, is a safe and effective means of alleviating pain during nearly evey type of medical procedure."  What is completely missing is that freedom from pain is construed as freedom from memory.  How is that the same?  Answer; IT ISN'T! 

Honesty is always the best policy.  The above paragraph from the AANA is dishonest in my opinion.  Experience and information from others has shown me that crna's are supplying amnesia, not "alleviating pain."  Let's be honest about this.  Refuse the so-called sedation!  Force the "safe and effective" crna's to do their primary job as shown by the above, that of "ALLEVIATING PAIN"!

While we are at it, I want more effective training for our anesthesia nurses in NERVE BLOCKS!  Without the amnesia to hide behind.  That's the whole reason my crna said that g/a was "necessary!"  His nerve block allegedly failed.  What he also failed at was finding out if *I*  was unhappy...  Of course he felt that I would have AMNESIA and would never know what really happened...  Amnesia is not the primary reason for the existence of crna's a shown by the AANA.