Tate Chauncey Health Trends Assignment

Dr. Garland Cowan MD

Specialty in Anesthesiology

            For my Health Trends assignment I spoke with Dr. Cowan who is an anesthesiologist in my hometown: Las Vegas. He currently owns, manages, and works with a group of anesthesiologists called Valley Anesthesiology.

1)   The first trend that Dr. Cowan mentioned was the influence of mobile devices. He said that this is changing the way patients go about getting treatment. People are much more knowledgeable about different illnesses because they can access apps that teach them about different diseases. When they come in to have a check up or have surgery, they already have an idea about what the doctor might say because they have read about it on their phone, tablet, etc. These apps not only teach them about illness but also about the different medicines they are taking. Dr. Cowan also said that there is an app where people can set a reminder for themselves so they know when to take their medicines. Technology is changing the way we approach medicine and health issues.

2)   Another trend that Dr. Cowan sees is a trend toward “out-patient” procedures. He said that in the old days it was a much longer process for someone who needed surgery. He used the example of back surgery. People used to be required to come in the night before, stay over night in the hospital, and then they would have surgery the next day. Not only that, they would also stay a few days in the hospital for recovery. Now he said people have surgery, stay in the recovery room for a couple of hours, and then they head home. Surgery is now a much shorter, more convenient process.

3)   The next trend Dr. Cowan told me about is specific to Las Vegas and the field of anesthesiology. He said that places that provide surgical care, like hospitals, are moving to an in-house model of anesthesia. This means that hospitals have a specific anesthesia group that is assigned just to that hospital. Whereas before, anesthesiologists used to move around from place to place based on the different surgeons they worked with. He said that this model has been followed around the country for some time, but Las Vegas is just now switching over.

4)   The next trend that Dr. Cowan told me about has to do more with medical students and new doctors. He said that recently there has been an increase in the number of medical students going into family practice, pediatrics, and internal medicine. These three fields are the most general and more students are getting into them because of the Affordable Health Care Act. These doctors can cover all types of problems so they are more useful than specialists. The Act rewards doctors who are willing to see anybody and everybody so it no longer pays as much to specialize.

5)   The last trend that Dr. Cowan talked to me about is also specific to field of anesthesia. He said that over the last year there have been shortages in certain types of medicine. The three main kinds of anesthesia he mentioned there being shortages in are Propofol, Neostigmine, and Fentanyl. The reason there are shortages is because the FDA has recently raised the standards and made the regulations stricter in the production of these drugs. Factories, therefore, are required to do much more testing to make sure the medicines meet the standard. The process then to make these medicines takes much longer than it used to. It has gotten to the point that the supply is no longer meeting the demand.