The hour you spend under anesthesia is the most-experienced and least-understood interval in modern medicine — and almost nobody has ever explained it to you clearly. Art of Anesthesia breaks down how anesthesia works, why it matters, and what really happens behind the drape: the drugs, the machine, the monitoring, the people, and the moments patients never see.
More than a thousand readers — patients, families, nurses, students, and the simply curious — and one of the most engaged audiences in Substack's health category. Free posts weekly.
The five most-read pieces
- What Is Anesthesia, Actually?The plain-language answer to the question every surgical patient wonders.
- Why Nausea After Surgery Is Worse Than Pain (And How We Prevent It)Explained by a clinician who has also published peer-reviewed research on preventing it.
- Propofol: The Milk of Anesthesia (And Why It Burns)The most famous anesthetic drug in the world, demystified.
- What Intubation Actually Is, And Why It's Always Done Left-HandedAirway management — the skill that defines the specialty.
- What The Pitt Gets Right About Nurses (And What It Gets Dangerously Wrong)Medical television and nurse visibility, from inside the profession.
The current series: the machine, the monitors, the wake-up
Through 2026, the publication is walking readers through the operating room one system at a time — what the anesthesia machine actually does, how we check it before you ever enter the room, what we watch while you're asleep, why your position on the table matters, how we prepare for the things we hope never happen, and what's really going on when you wake up.
Clinical explainers
What the drugs do, how we secure your airway, why you don't remember anything — the questions patients actually ask, answered clearly.
Honest commentary
What medical television gets right and dangerously wrong about the people who keep patients alive — and reporting on the workforce that delivers anesthesia in the U.S.