Major anesthetic themes in the 1960s

Abstract

The decade of the 1960s might be described as the Golden Age of Anesthesia because of the changes throughout the world profoundly influencing all aspects of the specialty and some that reached beyond the specialty. Research into the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of anesthesia grew to maturity in this and the next decade. In a search for why and what, phenomenological research increasingly turned into basic how and where research. New drugs appeared (bupivacaine, enflurane, fentanyl, ketamine, etomidate, pancuronium) or disappeared (Innovar, methoxyflurane), and their effects were investigated. Sub-specialization was soon accompanied by worldwide specialty societies, and specialty oriented journals facilitated training of experts and spurred targeted research contributing to improved anesthetic care. In the US, recruitment into the specialty grew out of an ASA initiative aimed at exposing medical students to the specialty while still early in their careers. Also in the US, passage of the Medicare Act in 1965 included anesthesiologists in Part B, stipulating reimbursement on a fee for service basis (similar to that for most physicians), improving salaries for anesthesiologists, and coinciding with a nearly exponential growth in anesthesiologist numbers in every subsequent decade.