September 2017 - Society for Pediatric Pain Medicine

Welcome to your Question of the Month - September 2017

Spinal anesthesia in infants is a viable anesthesia technique for surgeries such as inguinal hernia. A 2 month-old former 30 week gestation female is scheduled for a unilateral inguinal hernia repair. The resident on the case has a strong desire to perform the spinal. How does practitioner level (Attending/CRNA/Resident) matter in terms of success/failure of placement of an infant spinal?

A) Spinal success rate is similar regardless of practitioner type

B) Anesthesia attendings have as much as 15 times lower failure rate than a resident

C) In order of highest success rate- anesthesia attending>resident>CRNA

D) Ability to obtain CSF flow is similar with all practitioners, but block effectiveness varies with practitioner type