I REMEMBER attending a ‘continuous professional development’ meeting conducted by a most excellent specialist anaesthetist whose main theme was anaesthetic risk.

He lectured long and weary about best practice, appropriate use of the correct drugs, the importance of fully trained monitoring staff and the various circuits that could be used to deliver anaesthetic gases.

After a while, he paused and asked the fifty or so veterinary surgeons in the room if they would raise a hand if they had experienced an unexpected anaesthetic death in the previous year. I was heartened to see that only four hands went up.

The specialist then proceeded to request a similar response if any of us had dealt with a road traffic accident (RTA) death over the same period. Every single hand was raised.

He was making a very relevant point. There is risk everywhere. Fundamentally, while your pet is anaesthetised, he cannot be run over by a moving vehicle. The secret is in calculating risk and then doing absolutely everything you possibly can to minimise it because, like it or not, it cannot be completely removed. Nothing is totally safe.

The lecture, and specifically his reference to RTAs, altered the way I think about anaesthesia.

To me now, it is a little bit like crossing a road. Is it worth the risk in the first place? Do I really have to go there? Is there an alternative? Is the road familiar to me? Would I attempt to run across the M8 motorway to pick up a penny?

It is only five steps from my car to the corner shop to get milk, so my chances are good and I have done it a hundred times before and survived. How fit am I? Can I actually put one foot in front of the other? How busy is the traffic? Is there a safer route that can be taken? And so on and so on.

When you consider that a survey of 1,264 cats showed that four per cent had been involved in a RTA by the time they were a year old and that 75 per cent of these cats died, you can see why anaesthesia can be considered relatively safe compared to everyday life.

Of course, your chances of surviving are greatly improved if you look both ways before you cross and then keep looking left and right and concentrate on having your wits about you.

You can employ sight, hearing and even smell to further improve the likelihood of success.

Anaesthesia is just the same.

So, if you are worried about it, there are basic questions that need to be asked.

Has the health of my pet been properly assessed? Does the benefit of the procedure merit the risk that is being taken? Who is carrying out the surgery? Who will assist them and how trained/experienced are they? What happens if they become ill/need the loo?

Who will monitor the patient during the crucial recovery period (which is actually when most unexpected deaths occur)? What additional qualified staff are present who can help in the case of emergency?

Anaesthesia should not be a car crash.