In 1990,
Jeanette Liska lived through every surgical patient’s nightmare:
As she lay paralyzed from the anesthetics she’d received,
Liska found herself awake on the operating table with no way to
communicate her horrifying situation to the doctors and nurses
performing surgery on her.
What was worse, the pain medications she had received from her
anesthesiologist were no longer working.
“Drowning
in an ocean of searing agony, I sensed the skein of my entire
life unraveling, thread by thread. But I was the only one who
heard my own tortured screams—silent screams that reverberated
again and again off the cold walls of my skull…” writes
Liska in her new book titled Silenced Screams, Surviving Anesthetic
Awareness During Surgery: A True-life Account.
For
more than two hours, Liska endured terrible pain and fear. Silenced
Screams is her personal account of how she survived the experience;
how she put the pieces of her life back together following surgery
despite frightful nightmares and other post-traumatic stress disorder
symptoms; and how she made it her life’s work to assist
other victims of anesthetic awareness.
“Writing
about my experience with anesthetic awareness has allowed me to
take a horrifying experience and affect the lives of others positively,”
said Liska. “It is my desire that through this book, medical
and healthcare advancement on this subject will be made, and the
public will become more knowledgeable.”
As a
result of her experience, Liska is dedicated to patient and healthcare
provider education in the area of anesthetic awareness, with an
emphasis on therapy and research. She holds a doctorate in divinity
and a doctorate in pastoral psychology, and is the founder and
president of AWARE (Awareness With Anesthesia Research Education).
Published
by AANA Publishing, Inc. and the Council for Public Interest in
Anesthesia (CPIA), the book includes two chapters that provide
a technical overview of anesthetic awareness: “Anesthesia
in the 21st Century: A Journey of Progress,” and “Intraoperative
Awareness: A Clinical Discussion for Providers and Patients.”
These chapters were contributed by two Certified Registered Nurse
Anesthetists (CRNAs) who are past presidents of the American Association
of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA): Sandra Ouellette, CRNA, MEd, FAAN,
and Richard Ouellette, CRNA, MEd.
The
Ouellettes are well-known speakers on the topic of anesthetic
awareness. Sandra has been a CRNA for 33 years and is director
of the Anesthesia Program at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical
Center/The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Winston-Salem,
N.C. Richard, a CRNA for 33 years, is a staff anesthetist at Moses
Cone Health System/Wesley Long Campus in Greensboro, N.C.
“The
CPIA’s foremost mission for more than a decade has been
to educate the general public, as well as anesthesia and other
healthcare providers, about various issues relative to anesthesia
care, including the possibility of anesthetic awareness,”
said Suzanne Brown, CRNA, BSN, former chairperson of the CPIA
who was involved with the book project from the outset. “Although
anesthesia today is safer than it has ever been, research efforts
dedicated to continually improving patient monitoring and safety
are ongoing.”
Anesthesia Awareness Fact Sheet
Awareness Table of Contents
About the Council for Public Interest in Anesthesia
(CPIA)
Founded by the AANA, the CPIA has monitored issues that affect
the public interest in matters of nurse anesthesia practice since
1988. The council is a multidisciplinary body with public representation
that is concerned with issues involving public safety in anesthesia
care, and acts as an autonomous appellate body in the credentialing
of nurse anesthetists and their educational programs.
About
the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists
(AANA)
Founded in 1931 and located in Park Ridge, Ill., the AANA is the
professional organization for more than 90 percent of the nation’s
CRNAs. As advanced practice nurses, CRNAs administer 27 million anesthetics in the United States each
year. CRNAs practice in every setting where anesthesia is available
and are the sole anesthesia providers in more than two-thirds
of all rural hospitals.
