The origin of the title of my Leadership Perspective, for those of you unfamiliar with it, is a cartoon character named Pogo, dating back more than five decades. True historians may recognize it as a play on a famous quote by U.S. Navy Master Commandant Oliver Perry during the War of 1812, written in a letter to Major General William Henry Harrison: “We have met the enemy and they are ours.”
The origin of Pogo's quote was a poster that Pogo's cartoonist Walt Kelly made for Earth Day 1970, depicting Pogo in a wooded area, surrounded by litter strewn across the ground as far as the eye could see. The obvious message being that we are the source of many of our own problems.
As we assess the list of challenges facing physician-delivered and physician-led anesthesia care in the U.S., there is a component of “they are us” for at...
