In simple words: The doctor gives you medicine to make you sleep and keeps you comfortable during an operation on your chest. This includes procedures involving the lungs, the lining around the lungs, the diaphragm, and the area between the lungs. Because this is a complex procedure, the doctor uses a special technique called "one lung ventilation," which means they carefully control your breathing by only ventilating one lung at a time.

The anesthesia provider performs a pre-operative evaluation of the patient. The anesthesia provider induces the patient and monitors the patient during the procedure that a different provider performs, involving opening the chest wall by thoracotomy and employing thoracoscopy for the lung, pleura, diaphragm, or mediastinum service.The anesthesia provider uses one lung ventilation for the patient, ventilating one lung while collapsing the other. The anesthesia provider notes any types and amounts of medications administered, all forms of monitoring used, patient responses, and the start and stop times of anesthesia care. Following the procedure, the anesthesia provider oversees the patient’s transfer to post-anesthesia care.

Example 1: A patient undergoes a thoracoscopic resection of a lung nodule requiring one-lung ventilation., A patient with a spontaneous pneumothorax requires chest tube placement under thoracoscopy with one-lung ventilation., A patient undergoes a thoracotomy for repair of a diaphragmatic hernia requiring one-lung ventilation.

Documentation should include pre-anesthesia assessment, type and amount of medications used, monitoring methods, patient response to anesthesia, start and stop times of anesthesia, and post-anesthesia care notes.One-lung ventilation technique employed should be clearly documented.