When considering safety in office-based anesthesia one must recognize that both the surgery and the anesthesiology personnel should act as a “team”. The surgical procedure entails a coordinated effort, as the surgeon operates while the anesthesiology care team maintains constant “vigilance” to adhere to a safe anesthetic plan. This chapter will devote attention to the physicians performing the procedures and the anesthesia personnel, both of whom comprise the “members of the team”.

As discussed in Chapter 2, office-based surgical procedures encompass a wide array of medical specialties. The physicians who are most prevalent in the office-based setting are listed in Box 3.1. Each of these specialties holds its own training requirements and certification process to ensure that its members have achieved appropriate expertise in their fields. The scope of this chapter is not to discuss every subspecialty and their respective qualifications, more so to convey the message that the same standards and qualifications should prevail whether the practice is in an office or a hospital.