Physics for Anesthesiologists and Intensivists From Daily Life to Clinical Practice

This book, now in its 2nd edition, discusses, explains and provides detailed, up-to-date information on physics applied to clinical practice in anesthesiology and critical care medicine, with the aid of simple examples from daily life. Almost everything that happens around us, including in the operating room and intensive care units, can be explained by physical laws. An awareness and understanding of relatively simple laws such as the Hagen-Poiseuille equation, or of slightly more complex topics such as harmonic motion and electromagnetism, to name just a few, offer anesthesiologists and intensivists fascinating insights into why they do what they do.

This enriched and updated edition of Physics for Anesthesiologists is intended for anesthesiologists, intensivists, anesthesia and intensive care medicine teachers and trainees, as well as medical students. 

Preface.- Preface to the first edition.- Part I. Let’s start.- A little math we will need… and a clinical application immediately.- Part II. Gases, bubbles and surroundings.- Perfect coffee and oxygen cylinders: the ideal gas law.- Boats, balloons, and air bubbles: Archimedes’ principle.- Air bubbles in the blood sample: better or worse oxygenation? Dalton’s law and Fick’s law.- Cold, sparkling drinks, and blood gas analysis: Henry’s law.- Bubbles, tracheal tube cuffs, and reservoir bags: surface tension and Laplace’s law.- Part III. Fluids in motion or at rest: masks, tubes, invasive pressure measurement, and hemodynamics.- Continuity equation and Bernoulli’s theorem: Venturi masks, Hemodynamic instability, and Echocardiography.- From tubes and catheters to the basis of hemodynamics: the Hagen-Poiseuille equation.- Toothpaste, sea deeps, and invasive pressure monitoring: Stevin’s law and Pascal’s principle.- Part IV. Heat, temperature, and electric current: hemodynamic monitoring and more.- Heat, cardiac output, and what is the future: laws of thermodynamics.- Electric current, Ohm’s law, circuit elements: hemodynamic monitoring, temperature probes, platelet function testing, and defibrillators.- Part V. Forces in action.- Doors, steering wheels, laryngoscopes, and central venous catheters: the moment of a force.- Friction, trigonometry, and Newton’s laws: all about Trendelenburg position.- Part VI. Inhalation anesthesia.- Physics in a Vaporizer: saturated vapor pressure, heat of vaporization, and Thermal expansion.- Part VII.  Electromagnetic waves and Optics.- Light, air pollution and pulse oximetry: the Beer-Lambert law.- Scattering of Electromagnetic Waves: Blue Skies, Cerebral Oximetry, and Some Reassurance about X-Rays.- Sunsets and Optical Fibers: Fermat’s Principle and Snell’s Law.- Part VIII. Sound waves, resonance, ultrasonography.- Origin and propagation of sound, Resonance: the Voice of Xenon… and something more on Invasive Pressure Monitoring.- Ultrasounds and Doppler Effect: Echocardiography and, again, Hemodynamic Monitoring.- Action movies and Echocardiography: the Nyquist theorem.- Part IX. And Finally.- Activated clotting time and… A brief look at Relativity.

Antonio Pisano is a staff anesthesiologist and intensivist at the Cardiac Anesthesia and Intensive Care Unit of the Monaldi High Specialty and University Hospital, A.O. “Dei Colli”, Naples, Italy. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Hemodynamic Monitoring and Perioperative Hemodynamic Management in Cardiac Surgery at the Postgraduate School of Cardiac Surgery, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Italy. He has published numerous papers in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Critical Care Medicine, Anesthesia & Analgesia, the American Heart Journal, and the Journal of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesia. He is a book author and the author of several book chapters in the field of anesthesiology and critical care medicine, including a chapter in two different editions of the renowned Kaplan’s Cardiac Anesthesia textbook. Currently, he is the principal investigator in several multicenter randomized trials and is a reviewer for various international journals. He is, of course, also a great physics enthusiast.