The history of the nurse anesthesia profession is a bit murky as records weren’t kept well through the years as medicine and healthcare progressed, but there are opinions on who the first anesthetist was. Today we’ll examine the most likely candidates with our historians Nancy Bruton-Maree, CRNA, and Sandy Ouellette, CRNA, and try to determine who can claim the title of the real first anesthetist.
Click the timestamps below to help you navigate through the many topics we discussed.
On This Episode:
We always say that nurses were the first ones to give anesthesia and we’ve been doing it since the Civil War, but have you ever stopped to think about who was the first to actually administer it?
After listening to another podcast and looking through some of the history on the subject, we decided to explore it ourselves. Of course we couldn’t do that without inviting on Nancy Bruton-Maree, CRNA, and Sandy Ouellette, CRNA, who are the resident historians for the podcast. They’ve both researched the history of nurse anesthesia and know about the main characters that helped develop the practice.
On this episode, we’re going to explore the most common names that are associated with the first years of anesthesia and discuss who the AANA credits as being first. And we won’t let them go without sharing their opinion on the topic.
As you get started on the episode, keep an ear out for these topics:
- Sandy lists the books that do a great job of detailing the history of anesthesia.
- Where do anesthetists get their historical information from?
- The key figures in anesthesia history including Humphry Davy, Crawford Long, Horace Wells, William Morton, John Snow
- Who the AANA views as the real first anesthetist?
- The history of hospitals in America and who the anesthetists were that worked there.
- What is disputed between the different anesthesia professionals?
- How the name of the profession has changed through the years.
- The person that Sandy would refer to as the first anesthetist.
We’ve gotten so much great feedback about this historical series and we thank you for that. If you ever want to connect with Sandy or Nancy to ask them a question or request a subject for the podcast, you can email them at nbmaree@gmail.com and souellette515@gmail.com.
Check it out the interview at the top of the page and use the timestamps to help you navigate through the many topics we discussed.
3:00 – Background on this topic
6:36 – History books on anesthesia
10:21 – Historical information
15:08 – Humphry Davy
16:16 – Crawford Long
17:51 – Horace Wells
19:27 – William Morton
22:35 – James Simpson
23:06 – John Snow
28:39 – The real first anesthetist according to AANA
33:56 – Who was in the earliest American hospitals?
38:08 – Disputes
40:44 – The role nuns played
42:58 – The evolution of names for anesthetists
46:32 – Sandy’s opinion on first anesthetists
48:21 – Final thoughts
“You’re seeing the people that really started this. We have a chemist. We have a surgeon. We have a dentist.”
-Sandy Ouellette, CRNA
