Questions for the Anesth/Pain attendings

[MalloryWeiss]

CA-1 here, interested in pain, looking to learn from those with much more wisdom than me.

1) How much OR anesthesia did you do during fellowship (if your program allowed it), right after fellowship, and now?

Basically I'm wondering if OR stuff gets slowly phased out over time or do most people make it a priority to maintain OR skills throughout their pain careers.

2) For those who don't do OR Anesth anymore, do you still maintain board certification in Anesthesiology or just pain?

3) What is the current private practice job market like for those looking to practice both pain & OR anesthesia? If any of you can provide insight into how those gigs are structured that would be great. 60:40 vs. 70:30 vs. 80:20, etc.

Thanks!

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[BobBarker]

I truly believe if you want to build a successful pain practice you need to go pain only 4-5 days a week. You either are all in or you are not.

 

[willabeast]

CA-1 here, interested in pain, looking to learn from those with much more wisdom than me.

1) How much OR anesthesia did you do during fellowship (if your program allowed it), right after fellowship, and now?

Basically I'm wondering if OR stuff gets slowly phased out over time or do most people make it a priority to maintain OR skills throughout their pain careers.

2) For those who don't do OR Anesth anymore, do you still maintain board certification in Anesthesiology or just pain?

3) What is the current private practice job market like for those looking to practice both pain & OR anesthesia? If any of you can provide insight into how those gigs are structured that would be great. 60:40 vs. 70:30 vs. 80:20, etc.

Thanks!

i was lucky. had lifetime anesthesia certification. so i could just do pain, take pain boards every 10 years, not worry about OR things. it was hard making the decision to not do OR anesthesia, but it worked out so well, should have done it sooner. you do not have enough time to be up to date in OR and pain. actually i think it is even difficult to do spine and pain. better off just doing spine. think about it - how many docs are really good at pelvic pain, spine pain, headaches and cancer pain.

 

[SageCraft]

1) I did zero Anesthesia during fellowship. Zero now. My plan has always been to focus 100% on Pain. I do not have any colleagues who do both.

2) As painstaking as it is, I still maintain certification in Anesthesiology. I feel like in the current pain world it is prudent to have a backup plan.

3) I apologize but I do not know what the current market looks like. I've had colleagues struggle to find work both in Pain and Anesthesiology (maybe they're just picky). But again, I'm not close with anyone trying to balance the two. I agree with Bob Barker, a successful pain practice requires full dedication.

 

[TIVAndy]

some attendings at our institution use their non clinical days or weekend calls to maintain anesthesia skills. Also i have friends working in HMO hospitals doing 4 days pain and 1 day OR. you can find them mainly in academic or large hospital setting.

 

[willabeast]

some attendings at our institution use their non clinical days or weekend calls to maintain anesthesia skills. Also i have friends working in HMO hospitals doing 4 days pain and 1 day OR. you can find them mainly in academic or large hospital setting.

i did this for a few years. the problem is that you really are not that good doing OR a few days a month. seems like every time i walked into OR there would be a new piece of equipment that no one had in serviced me on. the final straw was when they required me to take call at a hospital that did (among other things) emergency brain surgery on infants. i told my chief i had not done anything like that in 20 years (since residency) and it was unsafe. he said " you have to be ready for anything that comes in that door" and "it's OK we will train you". 72 hours later i resigned my OR anesthesia privileges. may rank as one of the best decisions i ever made. literally a weight was lifted off my shoulders. maybe i am too much the perfectionist, but i would not have been able to sleep at night under those circumstances. by the way, i sleep great now...