Closed-loop anesthesia: Wave of the future or no future?

Abstract

A healthy 30-year-old male presents for a laparoscopic appendectomy. He undergoes induction uneventfully, and the case is underway when you feel the sudden urge to go to the bathroom. You contact your colleague who grudgingly arrives to give you a break. She says to you, "I wish we had an automatic system to manage the anesthetic for these healthy patients so we could take breaks whenever we wanted." You respond by saying, "Even if we did have a closed-loop anesthesia system, we would still need to be here to manage and monitor our anesthetic."