Anesthesia Patient Safety Podcast

Your airway cart might look fully stocked, but one quiet change can reshape an entire intubation: a different endotracheal tube brand, a new material formulation, a redesigned cuff, or changes in diameter measurements. We take a close, practical look at endotracheal tube materials and design, and why supply chain instability and product discontinuations can turn a “routine” device into a patient safety risk, particularly for neonates, infants, and other pediatric patients where millimeters matter.

We break down what actually varies between endotracheal tubes that share the same labeled size: PVC construction and the move away from DEHP, changes in flexibility, and how internal diameter, wall thickness, and manufacturing variability can increase resistance and impair ventilation. We also dig into cuffed endotracheal tubes and why there is no universal cuff standard. Cuff shape, cuff material, and contact surface area can change leak behavior, micro-aspiration risk, and the seal you rely on. Then we zoom in on failure points clinicians can miss, including pilot balloon and pilot line defects, the ability to pass a suction catheter in tiny cuffed tubes, distal tip designs that can deform, and when the presence or absence of a Murphy eye can matter in an emergency.

To close, we read and reflect on a published statement responding to medication errors that harmed patients, reinforcing an essential distinction: a wrong drug or wrong route error is not the same thing as spinal anesthesia being unsafe. We highlight system safeguards that prevent neuraxial medication errors, including standardized labeling, separation of high-alert meds, and technology-assisted verification.

Subscribe for more anesthesia patient safety deep dives, share this with a colleague who manages airways, and leave a review so more clinicians can find the show. What ET tube check has saved you from trouble?
For show notes & transcript, visit our episode page at apsf.org: https://www.apsf.org/podcast/324-endotracheal-tubes-are-not-all-the-same/
© 2026, The Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation

Your first day in anesthesia can be overwhelming with so many numbers, dials, alarms, and decisions that all land at once, and the stakes are high. We sit down with Dr. Lahiru Amaratanga to ask a simple question with big implications for anesthesia patient safety: how can technology make clinicians learn faster without losing the human touch that keeps patients safe?

We dig into practical education innovation, starting with AI coaching and moving toward a “trainee dashboard” that could track real clinical experience like intubations, IV cannulation attempts, and areas that need deliberate practice. We talk about why this kind of visibility can help educators teach with confidence, reduce awkwardness for learners, and support competency-based medical education using spaced learning, mobile learning, and smart reminders. The goal is not more content, but better learning trajectories that translate into safer decisions in the OR.

Then we widen the lens to teamwork and global safety. We reflect on what we can learn from high-performing day-to-day teams and surgeon anesthetist dyads, and why stable collaboration may improve outcomes. From an international anesthesia perspective, we highlight the need for minimal universal anesthesia monitoring standards and ask whether digital education closes the gap for low resource settings or risks widening it if new tools stay unaffordable.

If you care about safer anesthesia care, smarter clinical training, and education that actually changes practice, listen now and share this with a colleague. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us what innovation would most improve safety where you work.
For show notes & transcript, visit our episode page at apsf.org: https://www.apsf.org/podcast/323-how-technology-can-speed-training-and-strengthen-anesthesia-patient-safety/
© 2026, The Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation

The fastest way to improve anesthesia patient safety is often to stop asking people to be perfect and start redesigning the world they work in. Dr. Alli Bechtel sits down with Dr. Lahiru Amaratunge, a consultant anesthetist in Melbourne, to unpack how human factors engineering, smarter workflows, and better training systems can prevent harm before it happens.

We trace Lahiru’s path from supervising medical students to building the ABCs of Anesthesia YouTube channel and the Anesthesia Collective, creating practical videos and resources that trainees can watch before they step into the operating room. He shares the real behind-the-scenes work: the fear of posting, the sting and value of criticism, and why a five-minute procedural video can take an entire day to produce. We also talk about scaling learning with recorded exam practice, plus new projects that leverage AI as an exam coach and interview coach.

From there, we zoom into systems safety: designing out medication errors, reducing wrong-route neuraxial risk with NRFit connectors, and learning from morbidity and mortality cases where “simple” design flaws lead to devastating outcomes. Lahiru explains how closed-loop communication, flattening hierarchy, and in situ simulation in places like MRI and the cath lab build sharper teams. We end with an honest look at smartphones in medical education: incredible access, real distraction, and why checklists and handwritten recall still matter.

Subscribe, share this with a colleague, and leave a review so more clinicians can find practical anesthesia safety ideas that work in the real world.
For show notes & transcript, visit our episode page at apsf.org: https://www.apsf.org/podcast/322-designing-safer-anesthesia/
© 2026, The Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation

A dental office can feel low-stakes until the moment it isn’t. We pick up our conversation with Dr. Rita Agarwal to talk about the real-world safety gaps in dental sedation and dental anesthesia, especially for children, and the practical steps that can prevent a routine procedure from turning into a catastrophe.

We walk through the exact questions families can ask before scheduling deep sedation or general anesthesia: What medications are being used? What level of sedation is planned, and how do you know it stays there? Who is responsible for the anesthesia, and is there a dedicated anesthesia provider whose only job is monitoring and rescue? Dr. Agarwal makes the key point behind the ASA sedation guidelines: sedation can go deeper than planned, so the team must be able to rescue from the next deeper level. That means airway rescue readiness, including the most basic lifesaving skill in the office-based anesthesia setting: effective bag-mask ventilation. We also talk about emergency medications and why asking about oxygen, naloxone, and flumazenil can reveal whether a practice is truly prepared.

From there, we zoom out to the systems problem. We discuss why the U.S. still lacks consistent data and reporting, how state-by-state regulation creates uneven standards, and why simulation training should be routine anywhere sedation is delivered. Dr. Agarwal shares what she hopes to see next: better standardization, stronger requirements for deep sedation and general anesthesia, and robust databases that help us learn from every sedation, not just the cases that reach the news.

If you care about pediatric dental sedation safety, office-based anesthesia, and preventing avoidable harm, listen, share this with a colleague, and subscribe. After you listen, leave us a review and tell us what change you want to see first in your state.
For show notes & transcript, visit our episode page at apsf.org: https://www.apsf.org/podcast/321-safer-dental-anesthesia-part-2/
© 2026, The Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation

A dental chair shouldn’t be a place where safety standards slip, yet that’s the reality Dr. Rita Agarwal lays out with unsettling clarity. We talk through why office-based dental sedation and dental anesthesia can slide into dangerous territory: unclear definitions, uneven training, inconsistent monitoring requirements, and a system that often can’t even tell you how many serious complications occur.

Dr. Agarwal, a pediatric anesthesiologist and longtime patient safety advocate, traces how dentistry and medicine evolved along parallel anesthesia paths, then explains what happens when those paths don’t share the same safeguards. We discuss the tragic story of six-year-old Caleb Sears and how “someone will be monitoring” can mean very different things across settings. From oral anxiolysis to deep sedation and general anesthesia with drugs like propofol and opioids, the episode highlights the moment risk spikes: when ventilation fails and no one in the room is trained, equipped, and empowered to rescue.

We also get practical about what reduces harm right now: smarter patient selection (especially with comorbidities like obstructive sleep apnea or cardiac disease), consistent terminology that reflects the true depth of sedation, and an independent anesthesia professional whose only job is caring the patient. Finally, we dig into the dental anesthesia data problem and why reporting adverse events and near misses is the foundation for real systems change.

If you care about patient safety, perioperative monitoring, and preventing clinical deterioration in any outpatient setting, listen through and share your take. Subscribe, share this episode with a colleague, and leave a review so more clinicians and families can find it.
For show notes & transcript, visit our episode page at apsf.org: https://www.apsf.org/podcast/320-dental-anesthesia-safety-gaps-part-1/
© 2026, The Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation