Brad Larsen, CRNA

Bio

I went to grade school in Santa Monica, California and then moved overseas to attend high school. I lived for 5 years in the Republic of the Philippines and then completed high school at the Singapore American School. I was very drawn to Indian culture and spent much of my free time in the Tamil section of the city.

I've been a member of the Kaiser Santa Rosa Anesthesiology Department since 1993. I'm proud of the superb care delivered by this excellent group. My special interest is in the application of mind-body medicine to anesthesia care. I have been involved in a Santa Rosa pilot program called Preparing for Successful Surgery. Every member having surgery is offered a CD containing guided imagery, affirmations, and relaxing music. The imagery and affirmations place pictures of comfort, serenity, and rapid recovery in the mind. The body perceives these qualities as real. Many of our members have reported greatly reduced anxiety and discomfort when using the program.

My wife, Katherine, and I have two complex and demanding cats, Justa and Justine. I love astronomy, hiking, and editing movies on my iMac. I'm currently creating an oral history of my family. After filming my parents' stories about growing up in rural Michigan, I splice in old 8 mm footage, add scanned pictures and a sound track, and finally burn the completed film to DVD.

If you have questions about the Preparing for Successful Surgery program or would like to contact me for any reason, leave a voice mail message at (707) 393-2064. I'll return your call promptly. If your issue is urgent, please call (707) 393-4000 and ask for the anesthesiologist on call.

My Medical Specialty

More details about my specialty:

After nursing school, I worked in an Intensive Care Unit in Sacramento. I got to know the anesthesiologists as they dropped off surgery patients in the ICU and started observing with them in the Operating Rooms. After gaining one year of experience in the ICU, I moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut to start anesthesia training.

Anesthesiology is endlessly varied because each patient has a unique history and presents a fresh opportunity to provide an individualized anesthetic. There is tremendous satisfaction in watching a patient wake up quickly and comfortably after anesthesia.

My specialty interests and affiliations within my field:

I am especially interested in a multimodal approach to acute pain management. This involves using medicines like NSAIDS and ketamine as well as guided imagery to supplement opioids in providing pain relief after surgery.

Current projects or research:

I am also working with Kaiser Permanente Regional Health Education and Complementary and Alternative Medicine to bring the Preparing for Successful Surgery guided imagery program to every Kaiser Permanente hospital in Northern California.

Great health resources that I refer to:

http://www.drfuhrman.com
http://www.wellnessletter.com/
http://www.cspinet.org

Dr. Joel Fuhrman's Healthy Times Newsletter

Nutrition Action Healthletter
(Center for Science in the Public Interest)

UC Berkeley Wellness Letter

Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman

Becoming Vegan: The Complete Guide to Adopting a Healthy Plant-Based Diet by Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina

The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World by John Robbins

An interesting story from my training:

Photos from My Training Years or of Practicing Medicine in My Field:

Training-Bridgeport, CT

Interests

Currently reading:
Eating Animals by Jonathan Foer

My favorite book or author:
Dominion by Matthew Scully

Great movie:
Who Killed the Electric Car?

Hobby Photos & Links:

1500 Galaxies in a Speck of Sky the Size of a Dime at 75 Feet

Keck Observatory-Mauna Kea, Big Island.

Mauna Kea Observatories
Sonoma County Astronomical Society

Family & Friends

People in my life:

I met my wife, Katherine, at Ananda Cooperative Village, an intentional yoga community in the foothills northeast of Sacramento. Katherine is an accountant and an English teacher. She enjoys a variety of crafts including quilting, knitting, and stained glass.

Katherine grew up in New Jersey within a few miles of the Lincoln tunnel leading to Manhattan. Because of her intense urban childhood, she always dreamed of living on a tropical island. After anesthesia school, I joined the Kaiser Permanente Honolulu anesthesia department and we moved to Aiea on Oahu.

My children and people I care about:

Our friends, Joe and Rose Kennedy, have a delightful 11-year-old named Taya. Together we prepare vegan cuisine like cherry sage gluten sausages, steamed artichokes, and tofu/pumpkin pie.

An interesting story about my family or friends:

My father worked as an educational consultant for the Asia Foundation and took our family to the Republic of the Philippines in the late 1960s. During this time, my father developed a benign lipoma (fatty growth) on his left shoulder. It was about the size of an egg cut in half. He went to the Far East University Medical Center to have it worked up and was scheduled for surgery Monday morning.

The Saturday morning before surgery, he accompanied a friend to an informal clinic held by Filipino faith healer Juan Blanca in a private home. The healer would move his hand about 6 inches over a patient’s skin and an incision would appear. He then removed tissue with his hands alone. After my father had watched a number of surgeries performed without anesthetics or instruments, the healer asked him if he wanted his shoulder growth removed. Blanca made a scalpel-less incision from several feet away across a kitchen table. He then spread the incisions with his bare hands and with his fingers pulled out pieces of fat from the shoulder. My father reported that he just felt tugging but absolutely no pain. At my father’s request, Blanche placed the fat pieces in a jar for analysis. For the rest of the weekend, my usually serious professional father was in a euphoric joyful frame of mind.

Subsequently, our entire family visited Blanca's faith healing clinic and I observed superficial surgeries such as boil excision performed without anesthetic. The healer would take someone’s hand and move it about 6 inches over each patient’s skin and an incision would appear. The patients were fully conscious and appeared to feel no pain. (Wonder Healers of the Philippines by Harold Sherman, DeVorss 1967, p.190)

Photos of my Family & Friends:

Brad, Katherine & Mark at Ananda

Hawaii

Katherine & Brad

Taya Kennedy

Cliff Larsen

Shoulder Scar

Pathologist Report

Blanca Performing Surgery

Blanca Operating 2

Postop

Incision site

We have two wonderful cats. Justa is a gray part-Maine coon. He is bold and fearlessly greets strangers. We think of him as a little lion. However, in the evening, he becomes a lap cat.

Our tabby, Justine, is timid but exceptionally sweet. Katherine calls her the "beauty of them all." Justine's plaintive "meow" suggests that she is carrying the sorrows of the world on her shoulders.

In 2008, we adopted a 5 year-old Bernese Mountain dog. After about a year, the cats and I are thoroughly adjusted to having this new creature live in our territory.

Pet Photos:

Justa and Justine

Travel

An adventure I've had:

While growing up in the Philippines, some acquaintances of my parents took our family aboard their sailboat for a trip to Corregidor Island, the location of a fortress that guarded Manila Bay during World War II. A storm erupted out of the blue and plunged our boat up and down over the large waves. A pleasure cruise suddenly seemed life-threatening. Fortunately, the winds abated within an hour and it was warm and sunny as we explored the huge guns and fortifications on Corregidor Island.

Favorite place in the world:

My favorite place is still my childhood home -- Santa Monica, California.

As a child, I suffered from severe hay fever in the midwest. My eyes would itch and tear for weeks. My parents decided that my condition was not acceptable so when I was an 8-year-old, my father took a position at UCLA and our family relocated to Santa Monica.

Santa Monica is warm year round. Douglas Park has ponds filled with fish and amphibians. The warm waters and white sands of the Pacific Ocean are only a few miles away. Every morning, my father would sing a paean to our new home: "Beautiful, beautiful Santa Monica". Finally, Santa Monica is only a few towns away from Anaheim's Disneyland.

One of my recent trips:

After college, I traveled throughout India for 3 months during the Fall and Winter of 1977/78. I decided to take a bus back to Europe via Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey. I started my journey in February while there was snow in the mountains throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan. Outside of Khandahar in southern Afghanistan, our bus slipped off the rode and became stuck in the snow. The passengers calmly disembarked and started hiking towards Khandahar. I was one of just two Westerners on board and the distance to Khandahar was not at all clear to us. I was totally unprepared for a winter slog through the desolate mountains. Happily, another bus picked us up and we motored rather than hiked to Kandahar.

Travel Photos:

Philippines 1971

Corregidor Artillery

Florence

Galileo's Telescope

A Photo of One of My Favorite Places:

Santa Monica 2005

On the Beach in Santa Monica

Other Links & Photos