Hypnosis instead of general anesthesia in some pediatric surgeries

To reduce anxiety in young people and to reduce general anesthesia, new medical imaging techniques are increasingly using hypnosis.

TVA Nouvelles was able to gain privileged access to a hypnosis session at the Montreal Children’s Hospital with Alexandre, 16, who has to undergo biopsies after a kidney transplant.

This is the fourth time Alexander has undergone a biopsy under hypnosis. He says he feels great when he wakes up.

“I feel good and I have images that appear in my head. She is the one who guides me,” said the patient.

“Hypnosis is much better,” he adds.

“We use language to disconnect and enter into ourselves. “It’s as if we’ve shut down our fields of perception, so much so that we forget what’s on the outside to really focus on one thing,” describes Vicki Fortin, a medical imaging technologist at Montreal Children’s Hospital.

It is a pilot project that began in 2019 after a medical imaging technologist visited Europe, where the practice is more widespread.

Today there are five technicians trained in hypnosis at the Montreal Children’s Hospital.

Over the past five years, about 200 young people have chosen hypnosis, which is only practiced in specific cases.

The use of this technique also allows anesthesiologists to be reassigned to other procedures since general anesthesia is not necessary when hypnosis is used.

However, local anesthesia is necessary because hypnosis does not completely eliminate pain.

Montreal Children’s Hospital hopes to train other caregivers who can in turn practice medical hypnosis in other units.