Where will the procedure be done? The ABC article reports that 911 was called at 9:39 AM, that "responders on the scene" by 9:46 AM and that "Rivers arrived at Mount Sinai Hospital at 10:08 a.m." If cardiac arrest occurred, after two or three minutes, she could have had brain damage.
What kind of anesthetic will be used? What doses? I'd want to know, then research it.
How long will the anesthesia have any effect on me? Do a search on this topic and you'll find that going under general anesthesia can have effects that last a year or two-- and if you need to go under more than once, they are cumulative.
We don't know all the answers to the questions yet. But perhaps, Joan Rivers' death will make patients about to undergo procedures requiring anesthesia or proposal more careful and smarter consumers, not simply accepting the assurances of doctors who may be working at for-profit facilities. That doesn't bring Joan back, but it, at least can make something positive come out of her death. I hope that the questions her death raises may make potential future patients for GI and other outpatient procedures requiring anesthesia smarter consumers, and that they may give River's death some meaning, in terms of preventing future deaths.
I encourage you to read the whole discussion thread at studentdoctor.net. It is very enlightening, including raising issues of how the moving towards more top-down, corporatized medicine is making it worse for doctors and patients and how the issue of one doctor making a profit from another doctor's work is a big deal that is not dealt with nearly enough by government regulation and laws. It will be interesting to see what the investigation of the Yorkville Endoscopy Center by the state of New York brings to light.
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