We were performing an abdominal hysterectomy. My senior resident was operating and I was assisting her. When we finished the operation, we asked the anesthetist what the patient's blood pressure was.
"It is 80/50 mm Hg" the anesthetist said.
"That is low" I said.
"She is young and healthy. This BP is OK for her" the anesthetist said.
"OK. But why is it low? You cannot have produced controlled hypotension. She is under spinal anesthesia. Controlled hypotension is produced under general anesthesia, I thought."
"This is a sort of controlled hypotension" the anesthetist said. "Spinal anesthesia lowers blood pressure."
"We have not produced controlled hypotension" I said "by causing bleeding to occur."
They laughed.
"Her BP has to be more for us to confirm that the hemostasis is proper" I said. "Or she may have reactionary hemorrhage when the blood pressure comes up."
"I understand" the anesthetist said. She infused the patient, elevated the BP a bit, the patient bled a bit to show us the points of bleeding, which we secured and closed the abdomen.
