Tim Leeds Havre Daily News tleeds@havredailynews.com
A nurse anesthetist who practices in Havre has added his touch to a newly released book telling students and practicing anesthetists how to better serve their patients. Mike Barts is a contributor to the book “Avoiding Common Anesthesia Errors,” released in June. “This is for consumption by everybody, from the oldest to the newest provider of anesthesia,” Barts said Thursday. Barts, who just received his copy of the book last week, has a long history in the field. He began practicing in 1983, and said he has performed community-based anesthesia services in small towns ever since. He and his wife, Kathy, and their three sons, Christopher, Johnathan and Geoffrey, moved to Havre in 1999. Mike Barts operates Sweet Grass Anesthesia PLLP in Havre and contracts as a nurse anesthetist with Northern Montana Hospital. He said when he was contacted and asked to contribute to the book, it made him feel “humbled. I was very gratified and very humbled by it.” The book, the brainchild of Catherine Marcucci, MD, is the latest in a series of books in fields like surgery and obstetrics/ gynecology intended to help practitioners avoid common mistakes, Barts said. Marcucci thought “Why not one about anesthesia,” Barts said. Barts, who said he is active in an Internet community related to anesthesia and pain management, was contacted by the primary editors of the books. He added that they are primarily professors mostly on the East Coast. The next thing he knew, those professors were “talking to a guy in Montana, just like cold-calling,” Barts said. “It’s really pretty indescribable. I am a really clinically oriented individual talking to academians, but maybe that was my value,” he said. He wrote a section on common errors in applying regional anesthesia, and was soon asked to look over several contributions by authors in other areas of anesthesia, Barts said. The editors thanked Barts for that contribution in their preface to the book. “We also thank several others for their unique contributions Michael W. Barts, CRNA, for reviewing the topics list and sending us input from the field,’” they wrote. The book, which this morning pulled 2,360 hits on an Internet search, is listed for sale on Web sites including those for Tower Records, Hastings Books, Barnes & Noble, amazon.com and medical textbook sites. The publisher’s description of the book, listed on some of the commercial Web sites, says “This pocket book succinctly describes 215 common, serious errors made by attendings, residents, fellows, CRNAs, and practicing Anesthesiologists in the practice of anesthesia and offers practical, easy-toremember tips for avoiding these errors. The book can easily be read immediately before the start of a rotation or used for quick reference. Each error is described in a quick-reading one-page entry that includes a brief clinical scenario, a short review of the relevant physiology and/or pharmacology, and tips on how to avoid or resolve the problem.” The textbook will be useful for experienced anesthesia providers as well as students, Barts said. Practitioners constantly buy books to improve their work, he added. “We’re buying textbooks all the time to augment our practice,” he said. “In the course of a year I will buy four or five.” Barts’ work in anesthesia started after he served in another field with the U.S. military. He served in Viet Nam with the U. S. Army in 1969, working in memorial activities grave registration. He then worked for a year-and-a-half in the Central Identification Lab in Thailand, now located in Hawaii, which has a mission oriented toward finding soldiers who are missing in action, Barts said. After that, he said he wanted to switch his field to “taking care of live people.” Barts received his degree in nursing from a college in his home town of Skokie, Ill., then received his graduate degree as a nurse anesthetist from Creighton University in Omaha in 1983. He returned to military service during Operation Desert Storm in Iraq in 1991. He was activated with the U.S. Air Force Reserves and served as a captain, providing services in anesthesia. Bats said his work on “Avoiding Common Mistakes in Anesthesia” is his first input on a book, although he has contributed to magazines before. His credentials show part of the reason the editors of the book contacted him as well as being a certified registered nurse anesthetist, he is an advanced practice registered nurse, an associate of the American Academy of Pain Management, and recently has been registered with Dr. Score an online service allowing people to rate their care with medical practitioners and to review the scores of practitioners. Barts said Dr. Score will be a valuable tool for him to improve his practice by seeing what comments patients make about his care. “I’m really proud of this,” he said. “ It’s a very democratic thing.” He said he might be interested in doing work on other books in the future. It has helped him to focus even more on the care he is providing, Barts said. “This stimulates a provider to be a better, more knowledgeable practitioner,” Barts said. “ Any time I can get involved in a project like this I would say yes.’
