Bionic people: managing diabetes and anaesthesia

For people with type 1 diabetes, self-management with insulin injections and blood glucose checks can be challenging. High blood glucose is associated with long-term complications and low blood glucose concentrations are unpleasant and have a large effect on quality of life. The artificial pancreas is an exciting technology that can help to keep blood glucose in, or near, to the non-diabetic range and could offer benefit also associated with transplantation. Nick will review the past, present, and future for bionic people with type 1 diabetes!

Are we really asleep during surgery? Anaesthesia is an essential component of modern medicine that ensures patients do not experience pain during surgery. Modern anaesthesia is achieved by a “cocktail” of anaesthetics, analgesics, muscle relaxants, and amnesic agents. How do anaesthetists ensure that appropriate amounts of each agent are administered? How do markers, such as heart rate, pulse, and brain activity, help monitor patients? Nicoletta will tell us if we can really be certain that patients are fully unconscious during surgery, and what happens if they are not…