The Lion, The Dentist and The Pulse Oximeter

“Would your device work on one of my patients?”, the gentleman sitting next to me asked.

The year 1987, the place a British Dental Association meeting somewhere in London. I had just addressed the British Dental Association advisory panel on Safety in Anaesthesia and Sedation headed by Professor Poswillo and had been extolling the virtues of a newly available piece of monitoring equipment which could, in real time non invasively, measure a patients pulse rate and oxygen saturation; The Pulse Oximeter.

Needing to know more before handing over nearly £2000 worth of monitoring equipment, I was told by the eminent and forward thinking dentist, Peter Kertesz, about a pending case involving a patient of his called Arthur.

A week later, the pulse oximeter and local rep Heather were duly dispatched. Luckily I was in the office when Heather rang me in a panic, she couldn’t get the monitor to work! Peter, I learned, was operating with a headlight on which was interfering with the monitors operation. We had originally thought we could use Arthur's tongue for the clip sensor as sadly, Arthur, being a lion, didn’t have the fingers and toes we were so used to, but the strong light stopped that. Hairy ears also precluded the successful operation of the monitor...what to do? Quickly thinking back to base principals of Pulse Oximetry...a well perfused capillary bed, with minimal pigmentation and accessible, Heather was instructed to put the “finger sensor” on Arthur's prepuce, to great effect!

Over the years, it has been my privilege to have been involved in a number of interesting cases with Peter, a particularly memorable one being, The Lioness, The Dentist and the BBC.

This is arguably the first time a pulse oximeter was used to monitor a Veterinary patient outside of the development laboratories, and I shall be eternally grateful to Peter for asking me that question. It took several more years before I was able to really introduce Veterinary Anaesthesia to the pulse oximeter and that took the help of another caring and very influential and inspirational lady: Polly put the Pulse Ox on.