Doctor says in Italy, anesthesiologist was right physician for pope

Published: 2005-02-07

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- When the Vatican announced Pope John Paul II had been taken to the hospital Feb. 1, it also said the physician in charge of the pope's care was an anesthesiologist and director of emergency medicine. Dr. Rodolfo Proietti, 59, heads the anesthesiology and emergency department at Rome's Gemelli Hospital, which is part of the medical school of Rome's Catholic University of the Sacred Heart. Dr. Corrado Manni, the retired department head, told Catholic News Service Feb. 4 he has not spoken to the pope's doctors about the pontiff's current hospitalization, but the anesthesiology and resuscitation department -- recently renamed emergency services -- is the right place in Italy for a patient with severe breathing difficulties. In many countries, an anesthesiologist is concerned chiefly with administering anesthesia, either to make a patient about to undergo surgery unconscious or to alleviate severe pain. However, in most Italian hospitals -- including Gemelli, where the pope was rushed experiencing difficulty breathing -- anesthesiologists direct emergency services and are the physicians responsible for the "resuscitation department." "There is a subtle difference between intensive care and the resuscitation department," Manni said. In Italy, patients in critical condition following surgery are taken to the intensive care unit, while patients who enter the hospital in respiratory or cardiac distress are taken to the resuscitation department, Manni said. While technically a patient of the emergency department, the pope was taken to the 10th-floor suite of rooms reserved for him at Gemelli. Manni said all he knows about the pope's condition is what the Vatican has said publicly. The initial diagnosis was a swelling of the windpipe and spasms in the voice box, which cut off the air supply. In Italy, Manni said, an anesthesiologist would be the physician best prepared to deal with the situation, since the conditions are common in patients, who -- unlike the pope -- had undergone surgery and needed a tube inserted in their trachea to help them breathe.

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