Anesthesia providers are not supposed to leave a patient without supervision even for 30 seconds, let alone 12 minutes. In my residency it was a 1x offense you are let go, learned from day 1.

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I woke up during surgery once. I couldn’t move, but my eyes were open and I was fully aware. I saw my anesthesia person happily chatting with the others in the room. It took him a few minutes to notice I was awake and turn a knob that put me back under. If I hadn’t had a nerve block done in my shoulder, I would have felt everything. I’ve had 11 surgeries and it’s a major fear of mine that another person will do this to me while not nerve blocked (like on an abdominal surgery I have coming up).

It really blows my mind how casually someone can take a job that important.