Serial The Retrievals S02 Episode 3: The Guidelines
8 snips
Aug 7, 2025 
Susanna Stanford, a courageous advocate for improved anesthesia practices, shares her harrowing experience of severe pain during her cesarean section. She discusses the urgent need for better pain management and communication in healthcare, challenging the outdated norms surrounding childbirth. Susanna reflects on her journey from trauma to advocacy, emphasizing the importance of patient voices in medical practices. Her dedication culminated in presenting new guidelines aimed at transforming anesthetic practices for future patients, ensuring their experiences are prioritized.
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Susanna's Painful C-Section Experience
- Susanna experienced severe pain during her C-section despite spinal anesthesia being administered.
- She had to stop the surgery three times and eventually requested general anesthesia to cope.
Crowdsourcing Pain Experiences
- Susanna created a survey about pain during cesarean and got 150 responses from other women.
- Their shared experiences confirmed this problem was widespread, not isolated to her.
Anesthesiologist's Shift From Confidence
- Confidence needed to place a spinal block can harm the testing phase.
- Anesthesiologists must consciously switch to doubting the block’s effectiveness during testing.
