Anesthesiology
Your Safety and Comfort Are Our Top Priority
At University of Vermont Health, our experienced anesthesiology specialists care for you before, during and after surgery to keep you as comfortable as possible during your procedure. Staying with you the entire time you are unconscious or coming out of sedation, our utmost concern is for your safety and well-being.
We provide around-the-clock anesthesia services for both scheduled surgeries and emergencies in multiple locations across Vermont and northern New York. Whether performing routine or highly complex procedures, our anesthesiology specialists work as a team across our health system to ensure you have convenient access to coordinated expertise.
Why Choose UVM Health?
- Specialized team: Subspecialty-trained anesthesia practitioners provide world-class care in areas such as pediatric anesthesia, obstetrical anesthesia, neuroanesthesia, cardiothoracic anesthesia, vascular anesthesia and ultrasound-guided nerve blocks.
- Personalized plan: We carefully consider your medical history, physical characteristics and current medications when we design your anesthesia plan.
- Evidence-based care: Our physicians are driven to provide the best possible evidence- and research-informed clinical care. Our anesthesia specialists were some of the first in the nation to pioneer pediatric spinal anesthesia instead of general anesthesia for infants. We proudly offer this service as a means to minimize the sedatives and anesthesia agents given to babies.
- Child-friendly environment: The welcoming space of the Comfort Zone at Golisano Children’s Hospital strives to make your child’s hospital experience as soothing and stress-free as possible. Working alongside Child Life specialists experienced in easing the anxiety of young patients and their family members, we provide procedural sedation for your child for radiology exams and other medical services and procedures.
Anesthesiology Services
Our specialists provide comprehensive anesthesia and pain management services for the full spectrum of surgical procedures for any condition, involving any part of your body. These include:
When it is important for you to be fully unconscious during a procedure, we will use inhalational or intravenous medications to ensure that you are safe, comfortable and well cared for throughout your procedure.
Some procedures only require regional anesthesia, in which we block pain in a specific region of your body while you stay fully conscious. For example, we can use spinal or epidural anesthesia to numb your body from the waist down for particular types of surgery and child-birth, when desired by the patient and appropriate for the medical circumstances.
If you have a life-threatening condition and require care in one of our intensive care units, members of our anesthesia team are often part of the highly trained, subspecialty team caring for you.
Anesthesiology Specialties
As a health system anchored by an academic medical center, we offer a range of specialty anesthesia services, including:
Our board-certified interventional pain management specialists are available 24/7 and use minimally invasive therapies to block pain associated with surgery or other procedures. Certain medical conditions or illnesses can also cause intense pain requiring medical intervention. Our acute pain specialists can provide you with relief from temporary or chronic pain.
At Golisano Children's Hospital at UVM Health, we deliver anesthesia care for children of all ages who undergo a wide range of surgeries and procedures. Our anesthesia team works with Child Life specialists and specialized nurses in the Comfort Zone to provide safe sedation and alleviate pain for young children and infants in a family-friendly environment.
We provide many options for patients during childbirth to ensure safety and if desired, to provide pain relief. For patients planning to deliver via cesarean section, we offer neuraxial anesthesia, the gold standard for C-section anesthesia. This advanced technique offers faster recovery, less drowsiness at the time of delivery, and reduces anesthetic exposure to the newborn at the time of birth.
When UVM Health neurosurgeons or neurologists perform procedures or tests on the brain and/or central nervous system, our anesthesiology specialists provide pain relief or sedation to optimize safety and comfort.
When you undergo heart surgery at UVM Medical Center, anesthesiologists with advanced training in cardiac medicine will provide anesthesia or sedation. We often use echocardiography (ultrasound imaging) to watch and monitor your heart in real time during these procedures.
This imaging technology uses sound waves to produce clear images of the inside of your body. We use ultrasound to precisely place central lines (narrow tubes for delivering anesthesia or other medications) inside veins and for nerve blocks (to temporarily block signals in a nerve). Using ultrasound technology for nerve blocks allows for better targeting and more accurate pain management of specific areas of your body.
Advancing Medicine & Quality of Care
Better care, advanced procedures and cutting-edge treatments for you and your loved ones.
Improving the quality of your care now and into the future by training the next generation of health care professionals.
Immediate access to new treatments before they are widely available.
