If you were in a car crash and had been eating all day, how is that different from a routine surgery where you weren’t allowed to eat for a certain amount of time before surgery?
Edit: based on some answers, perhaps I should clarify obviously I understand they have to perform surgery in an emergency. My question is more what do they do in an emergency when you haven’t fasted.
Thanks to those with real answers, I never knew about the special tube that could be used. That’s pretty cool.
I’m having surgery tomorrow and can’t eat so was just wondering how they handle food in the stomach during an emergency surgery situation.
In: 2585
Anaesthesiologist here.
A lot of good answers already but a clarification here: even in emergency surgery, it really depends on how URGENT it is.
If it’s someone literally about to lose their life, their arm, leg etc, then for sure we proceed, do what we call a rapid sequence intubation and proceed, while accepting the slightly higher aspiration risk.
However if it’s an emergency surgery that can wait for a few hours, eg a deep laceration that needs to be repaired under GA but won’t kill the patient if there is a few hours delay, then we still stick with the fasting as the risk-benefit tips the other way.
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