Ivan Hronek, MD
The term “monitored anesthesia care” (MAC) was introduced in 19861 to improve on the term “anesthesia standby” used up until then, with the term “standby” being hard to defend when payment was requested. However, the words monitored anesthesia care do not discriminate by themselves from other types of anesthesia as any anesthesia care has to be monitored. The name of a procedure should describe its contents, but the term MAC