I’m Dr. Blake Forkey, an anesthesiologist, husband, dad of three, and the creator of The Anesthesia Playbook.

Before medicine, sports were a huge part of my life. I grew up in South Florida and went on to play collegiate hockey. That competitive background shaped a lot of how I approach medicine today. The preparation matters, but eventually you have to perform when the situation is happening in front of you.

I went into anesthesiology because I loved the combination of physiology, procedures, and real time decision making. What I’ve come to appreciate even more as an attending is that being good at anesthesia isn’t simply about how many facts you know. The difficult part is taking what you know and applying it when the patient doesn’t look exactly like the textbook.

There isn’t always one perfect answer. Sometimes you have incomplete information. Sometimes there are two reasonable options. And sometimes the situation changes faster than you expected, and you have to recognize it, adjust your plan, and make the next decision.

That realization is a big part of why I created The Anesthesia Playbook | TAP.

During training, we spend an enormous amount of time learning what we need to know. But I wanted to create something that puts more emphasis on practicing how to think. Working through realistic cases, making decisions, defending those decisions, and anticipating what could happen next. It’s the kind of thinking we need in the operating room and the kind of reasoning residents are expected to demonstrate on their oral boards.

That’s what TAP is built around:

SEE → THINK → ACT → ANTICIPATE

Outside of the OR, the most important part of my life is my family. My wife, Sari, works in medicine as well, and together we’re raising our three kids. Medicine is a big part of my life, but it isn’t the whole thing. Building TAP has become a way for me to take what I’ve learned through training and practice and hopefully make the path a little more useful for the wonderful people coming behind me.

I don’t want The Anesthesia Playbook to be another place to memorize lists.

I want it to be a place to practice thinking through anesthesia before you have to make the decision yourself.

Understand more. Memorize less.