If you throw the ASA 5 thing out there, then either the ASA status was overcalled or the procedure should never have been done. I know that's terrible with respect to her quality of life and all, but the only procedure it sounds like she should have been undergoing was a heart/lung transplant if indicated. If she really couldn't feed herself it seems like a G-tube placed under local in IR would've been the way to go. Anyway, neither here nor there.

Now I'm sure I don't have all the facts, but if you throw out there that this lady was a 5, something stinks. If I were presented on my boards with a patient who wanted an elective procedure done and you told me she's an ASA 5, I'm quite sure I'd fail that question if I operated on her.

As for your position about what surgeons know about anesthesia, I'm sorry you've had that experience, because that certainly hasn't been mine, nor do I ever want my understanding of anesthesia to be "keep moving the air in and out." But to each his own I suppose. Personally, when I'm cross clamping some old sick broken guy's aorta I want to know everything that's going on up top and I'm telling them everything I'm doing.