Need guidance on career perspective, managing frustrations, CCM fellowship

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pizzatown

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I love anesthesiology. I think there are so many opportunities for this field to grow and I love being what I consider a generalist who is pushed to know a lot about a huge scope of medical topics.

I chose anesthesiology over IM because I want to go into crit care, get to use my hands, hate clinic, don't care much for continuity or having patients thank me for what I did, and like the science behind medicine.

But 2 things are starting to slowly eat away at me...

1. Not a popular opinion with a lot of residents I have talked to, but I like taking ownership of my patients and having responsibility when they are under my care to make the right call. I want to go into CCM and stay in academics so I can take care of the sickest of the sick, but naively, I've just come to realize that when people told me in medical school that "anesthesiology runs the SICU/TSICU/CVICU" that it didn't actually mean the unit was completely closed and that we were the primary team. I don't like the idea of having gone through medical school, residency, and then a fellowship to finally become an attending who gets his plans overridden by a surgical team. If I can't even treat my patients the way I think is best then what was the point? I didn't sign up to become a glorified babysitter and I wish that our ICUs styled like those in Europe.

2. My institution has a wonderful culture and some of the nicest OR techs, nurses, PACU staff, surgery residents/fellows I have had the pleasure to work with. I am grateful to be here, but even with what I am sure is an unusual level of collegiality, there is a level of disrespect towards anesthesia that bothers me more than I want it to. Surgeons whining about anesthesia delaying cases, blaming late starts on us, nurses addressing anesthesia differently in the OR and PACUs, surgeons "jokingly" putting anesthesiology down as a specialty in front of awake patients, and of course surgeons telling us how to manage fluids, vitals, and our anesthetic. Both my anesthesia rotations were at our children's hospital where everyone was amazingly nice and respectful. Maybe I wasn't exposed to just how much **** you have to deal with as an anesthesiologist.

Could I be happy in any other specialty? Probably not. I thought seriously about doing surgery in medical school, but I think the manual tedium, doing the same types of cases for the rest of my life, clinic, and the hours would make me nuts.

Obviously, I wish I had the opportunity to have considered these things before I moved across the country and committed myself to this. I get the vibe that these are problems that are unfortunately inherent in the specialty.

Are these things that should make me consider leaving? Maybe I should have grit my teeth through an IM residency and done MICU instead...?

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If you think it's bad now, boy oh boy wait till you get out into the real world where the AMC chews you up and spits you out. This is not the field if you want respect
 
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If you think it's bad now, boy oh boy wait till you get out into the real world where the AMC chews you up and spits you out. This is not the field if you want respect

Yup. That's what bothers me. Even at a place where the anesthesia dept is strong I see small glimmers of how much worse it could be and its sad.

I don't want people to "yes, sir" me or be at my beck and call, but I also am not about spending my career having to deal with active disrespect.
 
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You should have done IM and MICU. Both 1 and 2 won’t be resolved by being a critical care trained anesthesiologist. You won’t have your own patients in your own unit unless you do IM/MICU. May you find some unicorn place with a closed unit and you feeling like you have all the control you could ever dream of taking care of your patients? Maybe. But you’re far more likely to be constantly dealing with surgeons, surgical reccs, outdated surgical mindset, and frustration over not having the final call in the care of your patients.

You either become okay with this because the pay and time off is nice, or it’ll continue to bug you. My suggestion is to be honest with yourself on how much you really care about having your own unit and your own patients, and if you think it matters enough to switch fields, then do it ASAP.
 
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Dang this post hits me to the core. I naively ignored/wasn’t aware enough the things you mentioned as a Med student when deciding anesthesia. I just thought amazing pharm and physio and procedures, helping crashing patients and saving lives. Felt like a perfect middle ground between medicine and surgery. I thought anesthesia and ICU were perfect. But now having almost done through residency, I can see the VAST difference between how medicine ICU are to surgical ICU. Not only in that medical pathologies are actually more interesting, but that the amount of ownership is different. I had no idea how much that would affect me. In the end, I still chose Anesthesia ccm because I think I could find a mixed Med surg ICU to have a bit more independent from surgeons and the like. So yes, your unpopular opinion is what I share as well which makes us more dissatisfied than anything and probably should have done IM. I was really close to staying at my prelim medicine program but decided to stick with anesthesia. I still love our skill set and try to keep up with medicine knowledge but it is disappointing I’ll probably not be able to attend an academic MICU any time soon. I saw it done a few times but seems to be the exception. Anyways, good luck to you.
 
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You should have done IM and MICU. Both 1 and 2 won’t be resolved by being a critical care trained anesthesiologist. You won’t have your own patients in your own unit unless you do IM/MICU. May you find some unicorn place with a closed unit and you feeling like you have all the control you could ever dream of taking care of your patients? Maybe. But you’re far more likely to be constantly dealing with surgeons, surgical reccs, outdated surgical mindset, and frustration over not having the final call in the care of your patients.

You either become okay with this because the pay and time off is nice, or it’ll continue to bug you. My suggestion is to be honest with yourself on how much you really care about having your own unit and your own patients, and if you think it matters enough to switch fields, then do it ASAP.

I don't want to live in the hospital and while I'm not gonna sit here and say I'd be happy to do this job for free I think getting paid 200k+ is more than enough for what I want out of life outside of work.

If my main satisfaction from medicine is using my brain then and seeing the effects of my plans/actions then I don't know if I could be truly happy in a "semi-closed" or even worse an open unit.

Is it better to switch ASAP or complete my residency in anesthesiology and apply to IM? What would make me more competitive?
 
Dang this post hits me to the core. I naively ignored/wasn’t aware enough the things you mentioned as a Med student when deciding anesthesia. I just thought amazing pharm and physio and procedures, helping crashing patients and saving lives. Felt like a perfect middle ground between medicine and surgery. I thought anesthesia and ICU were perfect. But now having almost done through residency, I can see the VAST difference between how medicine ICU are to surgical ICU. Not only in that medical pathologies are actually more interesting, but that the amount of ownership is different. I had no idea how much that would affect me. In the end, I still chose Anesthesia ccm because I think I could find a mixed Med surg ICU to have a bit more independent from surgeons and the like. So yes, your unpopular opinion is what I share as well which makes us more dissatisfied than anything and probably should have done IM. I was really close to staying at my prelim medicine program but decided to stick with anesthesia. I still love our skill set and try to keep up with medicine knowledge but it is disappointing I’ll probably not be able to attend an academic MICU any time soon. I saw it done a few times but seems to be the exception. Anyways, good luck to you.

Completely agree. That's how I thought of it too initially and now being a resident I realize how much of a difference those nuances make.
 
Step one: get out of academia.

Step two: go to a community mixed ICU.

Oddly enough, people with severe pathology actually exist in regular hospitals. In some cases, they are even worse off, because of lack of care up until hospitalization ("I was never sick until I started seeing doctors after my car wreck"), and lack of strong consultants. These can both make caring for them even more challenging and interesting, if you want to think of it like that.

I get what you're saying about surgeons in the unit. They are the exemplars of Dunning-Kruger. My current primary CT surgeon has become insufferable, and fights constantly about how to manage patients. Thankfully, due to Covid taking over most of our other units, I have a ton of general medical patients when I am up there, and I get to call the shots with them. Even before, maybe half my service would be general MICU, with the rest CVICU.
 
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Oof. Real life is going to be real ugly for you. Closed units are rare and are never truly closed. It's hard to ignore or resist surgeon "suggestions," no matter how wrong or dated you feel they may be. The most you can do is mitigate. This is especially the case in academics. I know many critical care anesthesia docs who abandoned the critical care game since they did not want to be a glorified manager and not get to make decisions and/or being overruled by the surgeons. I don't have many suggestions for you other than you are correct and academic critical care is in exercise in how much ****t you can take before you stop caring and do the bare minimum.
 
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What year are you? A community med/surg icu may fit the bill.

I did EM->CCM and work in a MICU and I love it.
 
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Oof. Real life is going to be real ugly for you. Closed units are rare and are never truly closed. It's hard to ignore or resist surgeon "suggestions," no matter how wrong or dated you feel they may be. The most you can do is mitigate. This is especially the case in academics. I know many critical care anesthesia docs who abandoned the critical care game since they did not want to be a glorified manager and not get to make decisions and/or being overruled by the surgeons. I don't have many suggestions for you other than you are correct and academic critical care is in exercise in how much ****t you can take before you stop caring and do the bare minimum.
Jesus, times are a changing. Plenty of jobs out there looking for intensivists only with closed ICUs. People just need to get out of academics.
OP, listen to @psychbender and I because we are actually critical care docs who are currently in high demand.
And now that hospitals are seeing that people outside of IM/PCCM can practice critical care, more doors will open up in the future.
I am doing locums right now in an academic department and am the queen. It’s a closed, MICU and full of Covid. Of course no one cares that I am an anesthesiologist.
Sure Medicine knowledge base is broader but with time, experience and reading our knowledge base can become comparable.
And I feel like we are more practical than they are and focus more on the big picture.
Anyway my two cents. PCCM is very competitive while ACCM just needs warm bodies .
 
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To the OP, consider pain.

I thought going into residency I too might do critical care, and really hated everything you mention. Disliked the Or for the same reasons.

6 months in to pain fellowship now, couldn’t be happier, own all the patients, they come to see you, you get consults from other docs, really flips the whole thing around compared to anesthesia or ICU. And the trajectory for pain is upward in terms of scopes of treatment options.
 
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I don't want people to "yes, sir" me or be at my beck and call, but I also am not about spending my career having to deal with active disrespect.
Then quit now because that's all you'll be dealing with. Added bonus - you'll be doing it for a lot less money.
 
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I love anesthesiology. I think there are so many opportunities for this field to grow and I love being what I consider a generalist who is pushed to know a lot about a huge scope of medical topics.

I chose anesthesiology over IM because I want to go into crit care, get to use my hands, hate clinic, don't care much for continuity or having patients thank me for what I did, and like the science behind medicine.

But 2 things are starting to slowly eat away at me...

1. Not a popular opinion with a lot of residents I have talked to, but I like taking ownership of my patients and having responsibility when they are under my care to make the right call. I want to go into CCM and stay in academics so I can take care of the sickest of the sick, but naively, I've just come to realize that when people told me in medical school that "anesthesiology runs the SICU/TSICU/CVICU" that it didn't actually mean the unit was completely closed and that we were the primary team. I don't like the idea of having gone through medical school, residency, and then a fellowship to finally become an attending who gets his plans overridden by a surgical team. If I can't even treat my patients the way I think is best then what was the point? I didn't sign up to become a glorified babysitter and I wish that our ICUs styled like those in Europe.

2. My institution has a wonderful culture and some of the nicest OR techs, nurses, PACU staff, surgery residents/fellows I have had the pleasure to work with. I am grateful to be here, but even with what I am sure is an unusual level of collegiality, there is a level of disrespect towards anesthesia that bothers me more than I want it to. Surgeons whining about anesthesia delaying cases, blaming late starts on us, nurses addressing anesthesia differently in the OR and PACUs, surgeons "jokingly" putting anesthesiology down as a specialty in front of awake patients, and of course surgeons telling us how to manage fluids, vitals, and our anesthetic. Both my anesthesia rotations were at our children's hospital where everyone was amazingly nice and respectful. Maybe I wasn't exposed to just how much **** you have to deal with as an anesthesiologist.

Could I be happy in any other specialty? Probably not. I thought seriously about doing surgery in medical school, but I think the manual tedium, doing the same types of cases for the rest of my life, clinic, and the hours would make me nuts.

Obviously, I wish I had the opportunity to have considered these things before I moved across the country and committed myself to this. I get the vibe that these are problems that are unfortunately inherent in the specialty.

Are these things that should make me consider leaving? Maybe I should have grit my teeth through an IM residency and done MICU instead...?

Every field is going to have parts that are equally frustrating..

IM deals with BS admissions, ortho dumps for "diabetes management", frequent fliers for CHF/cirrhosis admissions, endless discharge planning and case manager interaction..

IM ICU may have some advantages like being closed from outside surgeons, but those patients are a different slice in my memory, mostly everyone is sepsis, CHF, ARDs, futile care, old dying people. At least in SICU people recover and leave on a more frequent basis, they just had surgery so there is stuff changing and going on, there are interesting things about surgery and the post-op management - I did both as a resident and that was my feeling but NOT an expert...

It sounds like you just started out in anesthesia? How far along CA - 1? Give it time... Maybe anesthesia is actually what you want. Yes there are occasionally annoying surgeons trying to dictate how to do things, but you just have to dismiss them/ignore them. You are in control of when the patient comes in the room, You are in control of medications given through the IV, there is no greater control/autonomy of you sitting on the stool, the patient asleep, the surgeon not knowing what you are doing - you are doing what you think is best for the patient real time, no other specialist has any idea what we do, and it doesnt matter if surgeons or others dont know that, we know that... the asleep patient is MY patient..
 
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Every field is going to have parts that are equally frustrating..

IM deals with BS admissions, ortho dumps for "diabetes management", frequent fliers for CHF/cirrhosis admissions, endless discharge planning and case manager interaction..

IM ICU may have some advantages like being closed from outside surgeons, but those patients are a different slice in my memory, mostly everyone is sepsis, CHF, ARDs, futile care, old dying people. At least in SICU people recover and leave on a more frequent basis, they just had surgery so there is stuff changing and going on, there are interesting things about surgery and the post-op management - I did both as a resident and that was my feeling but NOT an expert...

It sounds like you just started out in anesthesia? How far along CA - 1? Give it time... Maybe anesthesia is actually what you want. Yes there are occasionally annoying surgeons trying to dictate how to do things, but you just have to dismiss them/ignore them. You are in control of when the patient comes in the room, You are in control of medications given through the IV, there is no greater control/autonomy of you sitting on the stool, the patient asleep, the surgeon not knowing what you are doing - you are doing what you think is best for the patient real time, no other specialist has any idea what we do, and it doesnt matter if surgeons or others dont know that, we know that... the asleep patient is MY patient..
Yes but the realization that as an attending most people will not be doing this, and instead supervising CRNAs...
 
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Pizzatown,

Don't overthink it. Regardless of what job/specialty you choose, at some point it will become a means to an end. I'm almost 10 years out and everything I love about anesthesia, CCM and medicine in general has become routine and mundane. Find your happiness and fulfillment outside of medicine and think of your job as a way to fund whatever it is that floats your boat.
 
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Yes but the realization that as an attending most people will not be doing this, and instead supervising CRNAs...

RIght but even with supervision you can still make the case your own..
 
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Every field is going to have parts that are equally frustrating..

IM deals with BS admissions, ortho dumps for "diabetes management", frequent fliers for CHF/cirrhosis admissions, endless discharge planning and case manager interaction..

IM ICU may have some advantages like being closed from outside surgeons, but those patients are a different slice in my memory, mostly everyone is sepsis, CHF, ARDs, futile care, old dying people. At least in SICU people recover and leave on a more frequent basis, they just had surgery so there is stuff changing and going on, there are interesting things about surgery and the post-op management - I did both as a resident and that was my feeling but NOT an expert...

It sounds like you just started out in anesthesia? How far along CA - 1? Give it time... Maybe anesthesia is actually what you want. Yes there are occasionally annoying surgeons trying to dictate how to do things, but you just have to dismiss them/ignore them. You are in control of when the patient comes in the room, You are in control of medications given through the IV, there is no greater control/autonomy of you sitting on the stool, the patient asleep, the surgeon not knowing what you are doing - you are doing what you think is best for the patient real time, no other specialist has any idea what we do, and it doesnt matter if surgeons or others dont know that, we know that... the asleep patient is MY patient..

MICU patients certainly take longer to get better and have a higher expected mortality, but I feel like that makes the wins sweeter. I had a surgeon recommend pall care for a 30-something I consulted them on in the MICU. 2 weeks later, she transferred out of the unit better.
 
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palliative consult not just for people who are dying right now, iirc, high chance within the next 6 months?
 
Pizzatown,

Don't overthink it. Regardless of what job/specialty you choose, at some point it will become a means to an end. I'm almost 10 years out and everything I love about anesthesia, CCM and medicine in general has become routine and mundane. Find your happiness and fulfillment outside of medicine and think of your job as a way to fund whatever it is that floats your boat.
This. I’m happy putting LMA’s into ASA 1 and 2’s. If you need your job to provide any meaning in your life besides a paycheck then anesthesia is the wrong specialty for you.
 
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Thank you guys for all your replies.

I am stuck between:

1, Staying the course, figuring out if the things I love about anesthesia outweigh the negatives, doing a MICU rotation during residency for reference and then figuring out my best move after graduating residency (staying in anesthesia and doing ACCM or pursuing a 2nd residency as IM and going pulm/crit)

2. Trying to find an out now and seeing if I can join the medicine program at my home institution, grit my teeth through an IM residency and do a pulm CCM fellowship, meaning I would transfer at the end of CA2/beginning of CA3 year (ouch...) and start again as a PGY1-2... extending my residency training by a potential 2-3 years.

And I hear you. Even if I am dead set on staying in academics I know that things will eventually become dry and routine for me. In 10 years I probably won't get very jazzed about the 500th septic, open abdomen. Will I care anymore about the 500th end stage cirrhotic with SBP that also has COPD, CHF, CKD and is still full code and wants "everything done"?
 
This. I’m happy putting LMA’s into ASA 1 and 2’s. If you need your job to provide any meaning in your life besides a paycheck then anesthesia is the wrong specialty for you.
I feel like you could argue this with any specialty. It's all about personal perspective. It's a problem with medicine in general especially in the U.S. where the true wins are rare and the cyclic nature of in and out patient care overwhelms day to day work.

Maybe you could argue that ortho is one of the few specialties where you truly fix the problem, but if my entire life was as one of the orthopods put it "Ancef, bones, cartilage" I never would have gone into medicine.
 
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Even Tom Brady gets criticized by people who can’t hold his jock strap.
We anesthesiologists don’t stand a chance.

1. Take care of patients like they’re your family members
2. Get yours.

People will trash talk you behind your back. No matter the industry, No one is immune.
 
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Changing residency as a CA3 would be a big mistake to my opinion. You are so close to having a first profession secured. If you have stamina, passion etc etc go for something on top although I truly believe you can still find your niche as an anesthesiologist in critical care. Always takes time to build trust, respect and a common “language” in surgical ICUs. All sides compromise at the end. Best of luck.
 
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palliative consult not just for people who are dying right now, iirc, high chance within the next 6 months?

As an outpatient, yes. Typically inpatient is strictly withdraw of care. They meant why don’t we transfer to the pall care unit here and withdraw.
 
Even Tom Brady gets criticized by people who can’t hold his jock strap.
We anesthesiologists don’t stand a chance.

1. Take care of patients like they’re your family members
2. Get yours.

People will trash talk you behind your back. No matter the industry, No one is immune.

I dont care how well he can throw a football, I still want to punch him in the face.
 
As an outpatient, yes. Typically inpatient is strictly withdraw of care. They meant why don’t we transfer to the pall care unit here and withdraw.
Not where I work a lot of the time. Seems like a service to get the family to come to grips with things.
 
Not where I work a lot of the time. Seems like a service to get the family to come to grips with things.

Yea, that’s fair. We handle all of that stuff on our own and usually only use them for end of life.

Regardless, not to get caught in the weeds, but the conversation above was about someone suggesting transfer to the patient to the inpatient pall unit for withdrawal.
 
@pizzatown, whatever you end up doing, be careful about mistaking the culture at your residency program institution for some kind of universal truth.

Academia is ... well ... special in a lot of ways that usually don't apply elsewhere. Don't get me wrong, there are terrible non-academic places to practice and I don't want to derail your thread into a PP vs academia thing. But there are lots of differences between academic practices, private groups, AMCs, employed positions, locums.

You'll get some replies from people here who are disappointed with anesthesiology, and they'll let you know all about it. I'm not saying their perspective is completely invalid, but it's just a perspective.

You don't hate anesthesiology. You hate the culture of the institution you're at. The right answer is probably to finish the program, leave, and not look back.

I'm sure you appreciate the pain and hassle of leaving a program (even if in good standing) and entering another, extending training. I'm not sure you appreciate how much better life and the practice of anesthesiology can be after residency.

And ... like @ProRealDoc wisely said above ... in the end, everything becomes a J O B. If someone dropped off a couple $million on my driveway tomorrow, I'd quit working and spend the rest of my life goofing off doing fun stuff. I love practicing anesthesiology, in the broader context of it being a nice way to make a living, where the associated hassles are tolerable given the rewards of personal satisfaction and paid bills. But it's a job.
 
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I felt the exact same way as you OP. I also really liked CCM. I ended up picking pain in part so I could have complete ownership of my patients and bc of the interesting procedures. And I can always do some anesthesia as well if I miss taking care of critically ill patients.

Personally I could have lived with the level of autonomy in the SICU, but maybe at my institution the surgeons listened to us more I don't know. Ultimately I didn't do CCM bc while I enjoyed it as a resident for my month long stents, emotionally I felt like I would have burned out after a few years doing it full time.

I know someone close who did IM then PCCM. You will be working your ass off in IM to match into PCCM, then work way more than we ever do in anesthesia for 3 years as a PCCM fellow. However, it's a really cool field and probably worth it.

If I were you, and I didn't care too much about the money angle, I would finish out anesthesia residency then apply to IM programs. You will be so much more competitive and have more options. And your CA3 year will super cush compared to your next 6 in IM/PCCM haha.

Just out of curiosity does anyone know of an anesthesia to IM to CCM physician?
 
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I felt the exact same way as you OP. I also really liked CCM. I ended up picking pain in part so I could have complete ownership of my patients and bc of the interesting procedures. And I can always do some anesthesia as well if I miss taking care of critically ill patients.

Personally I could have lived with the level of autonomy in the SICU, but maybe at my institution the surgeons listened to us more I don't know. Ultimately I didn't do CCM bc while I enjoyed it as a resident for my month long stents, emotionally I felt like I would have burned out after a few years doing it full time.

I know someone close who did IM then PCCM. You will be working your ass off in IM to match into PCCM, then work way more than we ever do in anesthesia for 3 years as a PCCM fellow. However, it's a really cool field and probably worth it.

If I were you, and I didn't care too much about the money angle, I would finish out anesthesia residency then apply to IM programs. You will be so much more competitive and have more options. And your CA3 year will super cush compared to your next 6 in IM/PCCM haha.

Just out of curiosity does anyone know of an anesthesia to IM to CCM physician?
Yes. He’s called @VentdependenT on here. Probably doesn’t visit anymore though.
His back probably hurts from all the sacks of coin he has to carry to the bank.
 
Just out of curiosity does anyone know of an anesthesia to IM to CCM physician?
I know 5 people that did IM, anesthesiology then CCM. I don't know anyone that did anesthesiology and then IM
 
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That’s true. I know a few people who did something else before anesthesia. Completed Peds, IM, surgery. But anesthesia is definitely a field people switch INTO, not out of. Must speak a lot about our specialty haha. But yeah, I think it’s most wise to stick out anesthesia residency if it’s tolerable, than switching out in the middle none the less. I’m sure that’s a big hassle that probably adds more pain than anything. Where I did my prelim year, I got to see both closed academic MICU and private practice open ICU (the hospitalist is primary but 90% of the management was the ICU team). Seemed to work out really well except that private place the CCM guys worked their butts off for sure. It’s nice to hear that ICU is a booming field at the moment and jobs are opening up for anesthesia ccm. That’s probably a good thing for the foreseeable future.
 
I felt the exact same way as you OP. I also really liked CCM. I ended up picking pain in part so I could have complete ownership of my patients and bc of the interesting procedures. And I can always do some anesthesia as well if I miss taking care of critically ill patients.

Personally I could have lived with the level of autonomy in the SICU, but maybe at my institution the surgeons listened to us more I don't know. Ultimately I didn't do CCM bc while I enjoyed it as a resident for my month long stents, emotionally I felt like I would have burned out after a few years doing it full time.

I know someone close who did IM then PCCM. You will be working your ass off in IM to match into PCCM, then work way more than we ever do in anesthesia for 3 years as a PCCM fellow. However, it's a really cool field and probably worth it.

If I were you, and I didn't care too much about the money angle, I would finish out anesthesia residency then apply to IM programs. You will be so much more competitive and have more options. And your CA3 year will super cush compared to your next 6 in IM/PCCM haha.

Just out of curiosity does anyone know of an anesthesia to IM to CCM physician?

I know someone who did IM then anesthesia then CCM. At least I think that was the order.

Edit: it was medicine -> PCCM -> anesthesia.
 
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I know someone who went pediatrics -> peds pulm/CC -> anesthesiology and never looked back
 
Just out of curiosity does anyone know of an anesthesia to IM to CCM physician?

In residency we had an attending who finished residency a year before I got there. Before anesthesia, he practiced PP PCCM for 6 years at a local community hospital. Of course I asked why he switched. He told me his teenage son was in a life altering traffic accident and life as an academic anesthesiologist was more conducive to his new caretaking duties.
 
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