Open secret of the surgery business is that the CRNAs (specialty anesthesia nurses) do all the actual anesthesia work, the Anesthesiologist’s job is really to pick the anesthetic based on patient history and bloodwork, do the calculations for dosing based on body weight, and attend for interventions if something goes wrong. The Nurse he put in charge when he left was almost certainly already doing all the work anyway and he was just twiddling his thumbs with a hard on in the corner.