Doctors With Reiki: Meeting My Anesthesia Guide

Monday, October 8, 2012

Meeting My Anesthesia Guide

I have always 'known' what size endotracheal tube to pick, even before looking in the chart, or meeting my patient. As I set up, I get this 'inner knowing' what size tube will be correct. (A rough estimate is the size of the patient's pinkie finger, or for an LMA, the size of the palm of their hand.)

How I 'know' this, I am not certain, but I have appreciated it ever since I was a resident.

In Psychic Development classes, I learned that there is always a Medical Guide with me. I have never known, seen, or 'spoken' with him. My friends say he is a man, about middle age.

Today, after a short day at work, I came home early, and was especially tired. I parked the station wagon in the garage, made my trip to hang up the keys, and came back with a kefir. I just sat on the back of the station wagon with the hatch up, enjoying the sun, and wincing at the Persian lady who just moved in from New York screaming in anger out the windows of her house at the top of her lungs.

Just then I sensed a spirit of a man, very mild mannered, average height and weight. He had a humble bow of sorts, and glasses. He was balding, and very very plain like someone from the Midwest. His energy was one of quiet strength, of reserve, of vast experience in the specialty.

G: You don't have to worry about that...it will turn out all right.
C: (I had been thinking about my crush, and what was going to happen. It is a long distance thing, and first meeting is in two weeks. The gentleness of this voice caught me off guard. Compassionate and kind.) Are you my Medicine Guide?
G: I am.
C: What is your specialty?
G: Anesthesia, just like you.
C: Are you one of the people that invented anesthesia?
G: No...I was much later.
C: (in my mind I see a picture of before I was born, but in modern times, not antique ones--30's, perhaps) Do I know you?
G: No. We have not met.
C: Thank you for all of your help. I really appreciate it. May I ask you a question? At the end of your career, what was it like? When you got to Heaven, looking back, what did you think?
G: (smiles) I signed back up, didn't I? (as sponsor for me). I picked you because you are the best at what you are about to do. I am Ralph Waters.
C: OMG! You ARE someone famous! (there are talks in his name, lectures, at the conferences, but I couldn't place the name or the face or the role in our specialty).
G: Go ahead, look it up.

I did.
You can see him for yourself.
I am so blessed to have a pioneer of the teaching of anesthesia as my guide! It is amazing!
This is like Montague Keen for Anesthesiology!
Here he is:
the video! He started with 'teaching films' to show intubation. Scroll down, it is on this page, the movie.
http://page2anesthesiology.org/2011/ralph-waters-the-man-who-invented-anesthesia-training/

I tried to lift a picture of him for up above. It didn't work. So I looked at this site:

1883 October 9: Ralph M. Waters is born. Dr. Waters' achievements during a long career at the University of Wisconsin make him the father of academic anesthesia in the United States . Dr. Waters died in 1979. For more information see Lucien E. Morris, Mark E. Schroeder, Mary E. Warner, eds. A Celebration of 75 Years Honoring Ralph Milton Waters, M.D., Mentor to a Profession. Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology, 2004 [Proceedings of the Ralph M. Waters Symposium on Professionalism in Anesthesiology, Madison ,Wisconsin , June 2002]