It ranks among the most traumatic experiences in a hospital: Paralyzed by powerful drugs yet aware of everything going on around him, the patient listens helplessly as a surgeon hacks away with scalpels and saws, chatting calmly about golf scores and the kids' soccer games while the patient suffers excruciating pain. Every year 40,000 people suffer the experience of waking up during surgery, unbeknownst to the physician. Anesthesia awareness, as it's called, happens 1 or 2 times per 1,000 operations. It has become a lucrative niche for malpractice lawyers, who argue their clients suffered permanent psychological damage from the pain and fear.
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