Anesthesiologists Need To Work Out These Muscles

You know that tired feeling you get after a long day of intubating patients? That sore aching sensation in your lanryngoscope lifting arm that has you popping Advils by the mouthful by the afternoon? Well now somebody has gone ahead and determined which muscles are causing you so much grief.

A study in the British Journal of Anaesthesia has determined which muscle groups an anesthesiologist uses the most rigorously during intubations. They used a surface electormyograph to compare the muscle activity of ten anesthesiologists as they intubated a mannequin using either a Glidescope or a regular Macintosh blade.

Glidescope

 

They found that the Glidescope allowed for less muscle exertion compared to a Macintosh overall. But it was most significant in the anterior deltoid, posterior deltoid, upper trapezius, and brachioradialis.

So before the next time you start having tender and aching left sided upper body pain, you may want to ask your department to invest in a video intubation system. Or risk having an anesthesiologist file a disability claim against the group for not providing adequate equipment to do his job. Or maybe you just need to hit the gym more often you girlie man. Yah.