Consults in Obstetric Anesthesiology

• Addresses the need for a book specifically aimed at the practice of obstetrical anesthesiology consultation
• Topics covered include administrative pearls and advice, valvular heart disease, multiple sclerosis, and cerebrovascular disease
• Written for general anesthesiologists who cover OB service as well as obstetrical anesthesiologists interested in starting a consultation service in their hospital

This text addresses the need for a book specifically aimed at obstetric anesthesia and covers topics such as pulmonary, cardiac renal, hepatic, hematologic, neurologic, endocrine and other diseases. The real anesthetic challenge arises when patients present to Labor and Delivery with unusual or complicated medical problems and, in recent years, a few of the larger institutions have developed an Obstetric Anesthesiology Consultation Service to prepare for the management of these patients. While most pregnant women who present to Labor and Delivery require anesthetic intervention, they typically meet the anesthesiologist for the first time in labor. Since the majority of laboring women are healthy without significant comorbidities, this does not present much of a challenge to the anesthesiologist and the anesthetic management tends to be straight-forward with favorable outcomes. However, using this new model, the anesthesiologist has the opportunity to discuss the various treatment modalities and potentially suggest diagnostic testing to be performed prior to delivery, similar to the pre-operative testing that is done in other surgical environments.

Dr. Mankowitz has been an anesthesiologist at Columbia University Medical center for 16 years. She completed her residency in anesthesiology at Cornell University Medical Center in New York and a fellowship in Obstetric Anesthesiology at Brigham and Women Hospital in Boston. She has devoted her career to caring for high-risk parturients. She is currently an Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at Columbia University Medical Center.