My mother was a nurse anesthetist like Bill Clinton's mother, and she had some horror stories that some of her colleagues had experienced, like a child who hid

My mother was a nurse anesthetist like Bill Clinton's mother, and she had some horror stories that some of her colleagues had experienced, like a child who hid some gum under his tongue who then required some furious suctioning after being put under and it migrating to his airway. Add the providing comfort function that gokhan mentions and that I remember from when my tonsils and adenoids were removed in the late '60s when I was in first grade, or that my brother mentioned from surgery in the last decade or so, and it's clear there will still be a human involved even if a machine takes over some functions. ADDED: your impression of what they do, their focus on a patients vital signs, easily measurable or subtle, their focus on keeping the patient alive, is correct as I understand it from my mother.