Upper Extremity

For many of us, upper extremity blocks were our first foray into the larger world of regional anesthesia. I can still remember my first pediatric supraclavicular block: wrist fracture for intra-op closed reduction in an awake adolescent in the middle of the night, the surgeon manipulating within minutes of placing the block (thankfully I used a smidge of mepivicaine!).

Highly effective, even in questionable anatomy, upper extremity blocks remain a powerful workhorse, always ready to give you a hand in a difficult situation.