ABSTRACT
This study aims to describe the variability anaesthesiologists deal with in their everyday work and to understand the different strategies used by them to avoid the negative consequences of this variability. An empirical research, based on the critical-incident technique was conducted in a paediatric anaesthesiology service in a French hospital. The results highlight a distinction between potential situations in which the problem was envisioned beforehand by practitioners and unthought-of situations which were unthinkable for the anaesthesiologist previously and at the time of their occurrence. This subjective classification based on ‘the astonishment of the perceiver’ highlights two critical decisions made by anaesthesiologists in order to manage variability. The first is the preoperative definition of an envelope of potential variability of the surgical intervention. The second concerns the occurrence of an event which trespasses the envelope initially defined and requires the mobilization of additional resources. The identification of these two critical decisions provides opportunities for researches and actions to enhance resilience in the practice of anaesthesia.
