 |
Anesthesia Patient Safety PodcastAuthor: Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation
The official podcast of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation (APSF) is hosted by Alli Bechtel, MD, featuring the latest information and news in perioperative and anesthesia patient safety. The APSF podcast is intended for anesthesiologists, anesthetists, clinicians and other professionals with an interest in anesthesiology, and patient safety advocates around the world.The Anesthesia Patient Safety Podcast delivers the best of the APSF Newsletter and website directly to you, so you can listen on the go! This includes some of the most important COVID-19 information on airway management, ventilators, personal protective equipment (PPE), drug information, and elective surgery recommendations.Don't forget to check out APSF.org for the show notes that accompany each episode, and email us at podcast@APSF.org with your suggestions for future episodes. Visit us at APSF.org/podcast and at @APSForg on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Language: en-us Genres: Education, Health & Fitness, Medicine Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
Listen Now...
#302 Reusable Versus Single-Use Airway Devices When Seconds Count
Episode 302
Tuesday, 14 April, 2026
A difficult airway is hard enough in a modern hospital. Now imagine managing it on a ship, far from resupply, where “availability supersedes preference” and a device that worked last month might quietly drift out of spec. That’s the tension we unpack while exploring reusable versus single-use airway devices in humanitarian anesthesia and why planning is what protects patients when seconds count.We’re joined by Matt McGee, a Navy anesthesiologist who served as department head for anesthesiology aboard the USNS Comfort during Continuing Promise 2025. He walks us through what his team saw with reusable airway tools after repeated sterilization and handling, including progressive deformation of rigid stylets and how that kind of performance degradation can turn into delay during unanticipated difficult airway management. From there, we zoom out to the broader patient safety implications: infection control, sterilization capacity, operational throughput in multiple ORs, and the very real consequences of depending on a fragile supply chain for single-use equipment.We also take sustainability and ethics seriously. Single-use airway equipment can deliver consistency and simplicity, but it increases medical waste and can strain host-nation disposal systems, raising environmental stewardship questions that belong in the same conversation as laryngoscopes and video laryngoscopes. The takeaway is practical and actionable: build a hybrid airway equipment strategy, monitor reusable devices with systematic inspection protocols, plan redundant procurement buffers for disposables, and coordinate pre-deployment waste management with host partners.If you care about anesthesia patient safety in austere environments, global health, or perioperative systems planning, hit subscribe, share this with a colleague headed on mission work, and leave a review with your best tip for building redundancy without creating unnecessary waste.For show notes & transcript, visit our episode page at apsf.org: https://www.apsf.org/podcast/302-reusable-versus-single-use-airway-devices-when-seconds-count/© 2026, The Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation
