about the t-shirt

“What exactly is a ‘nurse anesthesiologist’?”

This is a question that I hear on a regular basis. Most people assume that the person putting them to sleep for their operation is an anesthesiologist. Sometimes they are; however, most of the time they are not. In fact, current estimates are that approximately 65% of the hands-on anesthetics administered in the United States are given by nurse anesthetists. Couple this with the fact that anesthesia is presently 50 times safer than it was just 20 years ago, largely due to advancements in technology, drugs, and education, and you might start to get an idea of the role that nurse anesthetists have played (and continue to do so) in advancing both the art and science of anesthesia today and for generations to follow.

With this in mind, my wife and I got an idea one night while talking in bed after a long day in which an uninformed patient declared that “Only an anesthesiologist is going to touch me!”. What if we could just play a small part in educating the public at large by selling unique and/or catchy t-shirts that might easily spark questions from the people that are sure to be exposed to them? My initial thoughts?... Well, that’d be great and all, but they’d somehow have to be simple, humorous, and/or conversation invoking enough that people might be able to read and comprehend them in passing. You know, nothing too complex that the purpose behind it would be drowned-out by any illustration and/or text.

But what would we put on them? And how?Well… After a dozen or so preliminary phrases and sayings, we decided to narrow them down to the four that we liked best and to have them screen-printed on high-quality t-shirts that are both comfortable and stylish. I decided that if my name and reputation were going to be on the line, I wasn’t going to skimp and go with a cheaper option. In that respect, the t-shirt brand and types we decided on were personally tried-on and worn by yours truly and my wife in the Southeast Louisiana heat in order to assure the most comfortable fit, while not sacrificing on quality.

john marble