Night of the Machines hosted by Dr Mike Olympio at Wake Forest University School of Medicine

I am grateful for the opportunity to have attended the Anesthesia Machine Workshop “Night of the Machines” put on by Dr Mike Olympio who has done so for about every other year at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. This year’s was held  in the Center for Applied Learning and was well attended by anesthesiology residents, the institution’s anesthesia technicians, several student nurse anesthetists, and a few visitors like myself.  The 13 hour program was built on break-out sessions of small groups reading and analyzing schematics and diagrams on older machines, presenting their findings, and followed by expert lectures tying classic design to current machine principals. Representatives from anesthesia machine companies such as Mindray and Drager were on hand who presented their companies newest machines–the Mindray A7 and the Perseus A500.  The Mindray’s internal components are pictured above. The Perseus has a ventilator powered by a turbine the size of an Oreo cookie that spins at 55,000 rpm.  The two day event concluded with a hands-on Datex Aestiva machine pre-anesthesia safety check-out in the simulation laboratory. Participants were challenged to uncover 9 problems laid before them by the author of this course. Dr Olympio provided home baked goods while catered lunch and dinner was enjoyed by all.