万花筒 Kaleidoscope2007-12-04&12-05, 手术噩梦---麻醉失效

A new movie opens today fictionalizing a medical nightmare that's all too real for some patients. When you head into an operating room, you assume you will be unconscious and feel no pain. But as many as 40,000 Americans a year wake up during surgery, hearing and sometimes even feeling what's happening. Here's ABC's John McKenzie.

It is one horror not even Hollywood can exaggerate. You are unconscious from anesthesia and suddenly your brain awakens¹. So you hear and feel everything.
Wait... Something’s wrong.
But your body remains² paralyzed.
I am still awake.
Unable to cry out for help, unable to stop the pain. No...
Waking up during surgery, that's just what happened to Gennady Madelyn.
As soon as he put the scalpel into my flesh, it was like as if someone took a blowtorch or something and stuck it in the right side of my stomach.
But she was powerless to stop it.
I couldn't speak to let somebody know that I was awake and I couldn't move anything I was buried alive inside myself, frozen from head to toe.
It is what doctors call "Anesthesia Awareness³". The National Commission that accredits⁴ hospitals calls it a "frightening phenomenon" that's under-recognized and under-treated.
The problem often boils down to basic medical errors, anesthesiologist using the wrong drugs or inadequate⁵ doses of the right drugs.

One solution according to Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston is using a brain monitor.
The brain wave activity starts to get to a point where we see that awareness is a potential problem and so we can deepen the anesthesia. The machine which sells for as little as 5,000 dollars was reassuring⁶ to Bill Ham this morning. It takes away the chance for human error, you know, in anesthesia. But the American society of anesthesiologists is not convinced, saying there is just not enough evidence to prove the machines are effective. So for now most doctors rely on blood pressure and heart rate to signal whether a patient is waking up and hoping it's not too soon.
John McKenzie, ABC News, New York.

1 awakens   

v.（使）醒( awaken的第三人称单数 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到

参考例句：

• The scene awakens reminiscences of my youth. 这景象唤起我年轻时的往事。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• The child awakens early in the morning. 这个小孩早晨醒得早。 来自辞典例句

2 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

3 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

4 accredits   

v.相信( accredit的第三人称单数 )；委托；委任；把…归结于

参考例句：

• NZQA also accredits industry training organisations to register workplace assessors. NZQA同时也授权行业培训组织为实习车间主管进行登记注册。 来自互联网
• Accredits the personnel wages and welfare and the enterprise gets unhooked, An Jianju direct leadership. 派驻人员工资福利与企业脱钩，受安监局直接领导。 来自互联网

5 inadequate   

adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的

参考例句：

• The supply is inadequate to meet the demand.供不应求。
• She was inadequate to the demands that were made on her.她还无力满足对她提出的各项要求。

6 reassuring   

a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的

参考例句：

• He gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. 他轻拍了一下她的肩膀让她放心。
• With a reassuring pat on her arm, he left. 他鼓励地拍了拍她的手臂就离开了。