If someone goes in for emergency surgery requiring general anesthesia, how do you prevent aspiration assuming they ate beforehand since it was unplanned?
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As my anesthetist once explained to me (we were waiting for the OR because the surgery before mine had gone longer than planned), aspiration is a risk, but it’s a fairly small one. They’d rather not take that risk, so if they can avoid it by moving surgery to another day, they will. In emergencies, though, they’ll take the risk because the alternative is that the patient dies. Also, the risk is a bit lower than it used to be, because of advances in the drugs they use for anesthesia.
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