Unfortunately, we had a horrible experience with M2 Anesthesia. Our son, who is going to be 2 years old in November, has his front four upper teeth crumbling away. The dentist recommended we extract one tooth that completely crumbled away, and put crowns on the three remaining teeth. In order to do this procedure, they would need to put our son to sleep, thus requiring an anesthesiologist. Dr. Brittiny Epperson was our anesthesiologist, and she seemed nice enough, but I felt a little bit rushed into the procedure. When she came out to greet us, I was changing D's diaper, and we did have time to ask a couple questions, specifically about injection of the anesthesia: Where do they place the IV? What if they are unable to find the vein, what happens then? She said that the IV usually goes in near the ankl and she has always had success in finding veins, BUT, in the case that she doesn't find it, we would need to reschedule the appointment. After that, she showed me to the room where we would discuss a few more questions and weigh our son. Being in such a situation for the first time, I was very nervous. When signing the paperwork, I noticed there was a note saying that there is possible death after anesthesia, in special cases. I wanted to ask about that, but everything happened so quickly that I felt like I didn't have the time. When we came into the room, they needed to weigh our son, but he was hesitant about stepping on the scale. So I stepped on the scale while holding him, and then stepped on the scale again while he was seated on the chair. The moment I sat down, Dr. Epperson asked if she could take him away to get started. That's when I felt rushed and flustered; I wish she had stayed just a little bit more so I could get situated and remember to ask the question about the "special cases" mentioned earlier. And also to ask what kind of anesthetic she was planning to use, etc. Of course, our son started crying when she took him, even though she had given him a toy to play with. But after approximately 15-20 seconds, all was quiet, since she gave him a mask which made him drowsy.
Almost an hour later, the receptionist came to us and said "Well, you asked about finding the vein? Dr. Epperson was not able to find it. We will have to reschedule the appointment."
Of course, this was a big shock to us, and I was quite frustrated at the point that he WAS drowsy from the mask, which has it's side effects, but no work was done and we will have to go through this process again. I won't go into the details of how badly our son had come out of this drowsy state, since that is not relative to the review of M2 Anesthesia. Dr. Epperson did apologize and stated that this was the first time such a thing happened to her, and she was so sorry for "all the pokes."
"All the pokes" were actually my biggest point of frustration. After we took off the cotton balls which were taped onto his hands, ankles and inside of his arms, I saw that on one hand only, there were 4 pokes! And on the other there were 3! On his ankles there were also 3 or 4 pokes on each ankle, and on the inside of his arms only 1 poke each. I mean, if you obviously can't find the vein, why continue to harass the poor kid??? I just don't understand. It's been over a week and he still has large bruises on his hands. All of the people I have talked to stated that if the person is a professional anesthesiologist, they will find the vein right away, from the very first poke. I am not familiar with many medicinal procedures, and I guess there is a small percent when you just can't find the vein. But why continue on poking, and poking, and poking? When she said "sorry for all the pokes," I thought you know, one poke on each area! But the total came out to at least 12!!
Anyways, I am very displeased, and as a first time mom, I feel horrible that I even allowed my son to go through such a procedure. I will be looking at an alternate route, and definitely an alternate anesthesia group, if there is nothing else to fix the situation. Sorry to write such a bad review, but I felt like it was my responsibility to warn those out there. Maybe if you do use any anesthesiologist, specify to them that they only poke a different area ONCE, before you go into the procedure. read more