Taking a Team Approach to Anesthesia
By Nick Patterson
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As a member of an anesthesiology care team, Matt Sherer can provide personalized care to multiple patients.
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Though Matt Sherer, M.D., graduated five years ago, he’s never far from medical school. At least 10 of his coworkers at Anesthesia Services of Birmingham are fellow alumni of the School of Medicine. But that connection isn’t the only thing that forges strong bonds between Sherer and his fellow specialists.
An anesthesiologist, Sherer is part of an anesthesia care team, which is “the method we’ve adopted to cover as many surgical procedures as possible and to provide anesthesia as safely as possible,” he says. His team, stationed at Brookwood Medical Center, oversees anesthesia for every surgical specialty except pediatrics.
The team approach, Sherer says, leads to better care for each patient and offers a solution to a situation challenging hospitals nationwide. “There’s just simply not enough anesthesiologists in the country to cover every single operating room. It’s not even close,” he explains. But with the care team, “it’s one M.D. anesthesiologist supervising three or four certified nurse anesthetists (CRNAs). Our responsibility is to see the patient before surgery and formulate an anesthetic plan if any kind of procedure such as an epidural, pain block, or central line is required.”
After Sherer sees the patient off to sleep, the CRNAs handle most of the direct patient care, remaining for the duration of the surgery. That frees the anesthesiologists to supervise more cases than they could otherwise—though they are in constant contact with the CRNAs. “They know to call us when they need us,” Sherer says. “We are there for the beginning of each case, for the end of each case, and anytime in between.”
Sherer came to anesthesiology in a roundabout way. He thought he wanted to go into radiology until two elective courses—one in radiology and the other in anesthesiology—made his preference clear. But during his residency at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Sherer gained a deeper understanding of the impact of considerate patient care. His son Drayton was born with a cervical teratoma, leading to many anxious moments in the hospital.
Although Drayton is doing fine now, his dad never forgot what he learned in that experience when he stood in his patients’ shoes. “I think patients deserve to be in the loop with their own medical care,” he says. “So I always tell my patients that if they have any questions at all, page me, and I’ll come running back over here.
“I've always been amazed,” he continues. “Even if patients have had surgery many times, they can perceive surgery and anesthesia as being a dangerous venture. So they often say, ‘Just make sure I wake up.’” Sherer believes the right anesthesiologist—and a supportive care team—can lessen that uncertainty and provide crucial reassurance.
“I tell them we’re going to do absolutely everything in the world for them and get them through it,” Sherer says. “It’s rewarding to walk with people through what’s obviously a scary journey for them and see them on the other side.”