Titrating flows with knobs is Virginia Apgar anesthesia. I should be able to punch 100% oxygen and change flows by electronic immediate feedback, especially in emergencies. Drager does not allow this. You have to spin knobs. And moreover it's not an actual flowmeter even though it's a knob on drager. It's a half assed electronictized flowmeter.
Er, on any of those machines if you want 100% oxygen you just spin the air knob (and/or nitrous if you use that stuff) all the way closed. Takes literally a fraction of a second.
You don't even have to look at the flowmeter knobs, the way you do touchscreen controls, because they're textured differently. (You're aware that's an ancient and enduring safety feature, right?)
And I absolutely HATED having to punch the button spontaneous mode twice or whatever to switch to the bag. I like to flip the handle on GE to know in an instant I'm on the bag to handle an emergency.
Look, I'm not going to argue that you're not entitled to have a preference of one machine over another. You can certainly like the GE more than the Drager or the Mindray or whatever. You don't even need a better reason than preferring the paint job of one over the other. There's a joy to owning and using high quality tools even if they aren't strictly necessary. But don't put on these silly airs about one being "dramatically inferior" to another.
I'm not above whining about machines that annoy me. Today I had to wait more than a minute for some fancy GE ultrasound machine in the cath lab to boot up before I could use it. No idea why it can't be instant-on like the Sonosites or why some engineer (or marketing doofus) decided it needs to run Windows.
But your complaints about the Dragers ... I don't want to be mean and say dumb, but they're nonsensical.
If it was up to me and I was spending someone else's money, I'd buy all GE machines for no other reasons than Buy 'Merican, beat Germany, and **** China. But there is absolutely nothing about the Drager or Mindray machines that makes patient care the slightest bit more difficult or dangerous. I don't want to dismiss your opinion because you're a resident, but these kinds of really strong opinions about the equipment you prefer or need to be safe in an emergency are really the voice of inexperience.
