Dr. Tiffany Moon: Is Anesthesia Safe? What Patients Fear vs. What Actually Happens

Dr. Tiffany Moon (0:00)

Athletes tend to have lower blood pressures and lower heart rates, and during surgery, they're very stable. People who are uncontrolled hypertensive, they're 160 over 90, I put them to sleep, their blood pressure plummets. And so you look at the anesthesia record and it looks like a roller coaster. Versus a healthy person like you, presumably having surgery, we call it railroad tracks. You're like, oh, this is like a jog on 5 on the treadmill, I could do this all day.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon (0:26)

Interesting.

Dr. Tiffany Moon (0:27)

The other guy who never gets up off the couch, surgery is a big physiologic insult. I love academia in the theory of it. I get to teach, I run clinical trials. What I don't like is the red tape being told that I was a quote unquote embarrassment to the institution when I decided to do 12 weeks of Reality TV. You know, it was one season, like give me a break. Ironically, going on Real Housewives actually allowed me to then talk more about science and mentorship and equality in the workforce and the gender pay gap, which are topics that I'm passionate about because all of a sudden somebody cared what I had to say.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon (1:16)

Dr. Tiffany Moon, you have been the number one request from my production team. Welcome to the show.

Dr. Tiffany Moon (1:24)

Thank you so much.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon (1:25)

Many people might be like, but she's so pretty, she's doing all this other stuff, she's speaking on stages, is she really a doctor? Yes, you are a anesthesiologist and associate professor, I think moving to full professor.

Dr. Tiffany Moon (1:41)

Hope so.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon (1:42)

At Southwestern in Dallas, which is one of Shane did apply to that for residency, and you are a full anesthesiologist and a professor. By the way, friends, I know that you're into the science, but you have published multiple randomized control trials on anesthesia, on obesity, on bariatric surgery and anesthesia. The list goes on. Your Google Scholar list is probably longer than your speaking list.

Dr. Tiffany Moon (2:06)

I don't even know. I haven't checked it. I love that you did your research and you have my CV and my list of publications and clinical trials, and I love that your listeners want to know about the science, because most of the time, I go on a podcast, right? And they're like, so do you talk to any of the other ladies from Housewives still? And I'm like, oh, Lord, here we go.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon (2:26)

To be fair, she was on a TV show, a reality show. But what struck me about you, we met when we were, we've been in contact in multiple, we have multiple friends in common. We met, I think, in person for the first time in New York City. Yes. And you're just so friendly, so inviting, and so intelligent, not to make anyone nauseous, but I think in the scientific community, there is a real challenge in science communication. You mentor a lot of residents every July, you get a batch of new residents, I'm sure that's fun. I've been hearing all about that from my other doctor friends.

But how long have you been an anesthesiologist?

Dr. Tiffany Moon (3:06)

I graduated residency in 2012 and took a job as an assistant professor. So this is the only job I've ever had. I work in a level one trauma hospital, it's Parkland, right? We call it the knife and gun show, bad car accidents, those kinds of things.

So I take care of incredibly sick patients who are having surgery, sometimes emergency surgery.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon (3:27)

As an anesthesiologist, if you could frame what that is as a discipline, as a science or medical discipline?

Dr. Tiffany Moon (3:34)

I would describe anesthesiology as the marriage of physiology and pharmacology, right? Like my job is to ensure that when a patient goes to sleep for surgery, that it's done in a safe manner, that the airway is secured, that their blood pressure is maintained, that blood is transfused when it needs to be. And then to at the end of surgery, magically hit some off button that the surgeons think we have, and they just wake up and go to the recovery room as if nothing happened. Like if you think about it in that way, it's kind of magic. And I always say like, anesthesia is like 80% science, 20% art. There's definitely an art to it. Not every anesthetic is the same because every patient is different, their physiology is different, their epigenomics is different, right? Like how they respond to certain drugs. Some people don't do well with anesthesia. They're incredibly nauseous afterwards. Some people have a high pain tolerance. Some people do not. Like it's different every day, which is what I think makes my job so interesting.