Thanks for the additional insight above.
TECHNIQUE:
I actually ended up spending time with anesthesia in the OR, spoke with many residents, attendings, and program director. I think this was very helpful in getting an insight into the specialty. I'll just type out my thoughts and see if anyone has any opinions. A lot of it is trying to compare with radiology, i.e. what I would be gaining vs what I'd be giving up.
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FINDINGS:
- In terms of the work, it definitely depends on the type of person you are. I think for me, it's pretty fun juggling different drugs and seeing the response immediately on the screen. The highs are pretty high and you get immersed into it that time flies quick when it's busy. For cerebral people, finding Waldo all day can be much more satisfying. I would not consider myself as a very cerebral person.
- The workload is much more evenly delegated between your mental and physical in anesthesia when compared to radiology. The mental power needed in radiology is no doubt way more exhausting. The thing about anesthesia, is that by the end of the shift I DESIRED to be alone and relax in a dark place and just wanted to go nap. This is such a rewarding feeling. Whereas in rads, after a shift, I just want to be in a very lit place and my brain is still running it's actually hard to sleep. I need to make up for the sedentary work environment.
- The "WT*" moments in radiology are more common than in anesthesiology when you compare seasoned attendings in both specialties. I really hate how 10 years into practice and radiologists would still say "I've never seen that in my life before" a good number of times every month.
- The downtime in anesthesiology, on average, beats radiology by an incredibly large margin. Some cases will be crazy busy, but there's nearly always a mix of extremely routine cases with lots of downtime. This may not be the case for many anesthesiologists, but if you were to take the average radiologist and the average anesthesiologist, the radiologist comes out with much much less down time.
- Radiology hours seem to be more set and reasonable on paper. But given the increase in demand for 24hr daily coverage, some shifts can be brutal and attendings nowadays are expected to rotate these shifts with terrible hours. It still seems like call in anesthesia is more frequent and the hours are more abrupt, especially since the schedule depends on the surgeons and you have to be in the OR even before them.
- While at this time for me it feels like anesthesiology work seems more gratifying and fun than reading scans all day, I realized that the non-anesthesiology parts of the job can be a quite big component of the daily routine. Unless one finds a non-supervisory gig, supervision does not seem to be very exciting. I don't know if anesthesia is moving more towards supervision in general, but if it is then this can present a few annoyances one has to deal with. In particular, picking and choosing your CRNA's may not be possible, you may have malignant supervisory models, loss of control/increased liability, and worst of all is a decline in skillset over time. You almost become an administrator running the board. I think if every anesthesiologist did their own case then it's a lot more fun.
- It seems like partnership problems present in radiology are no less present in anesthesiology. Extra and worse call shifts are dumped on the more junior attendings. There seems to be nothing they can do about it. I also didn't realize that it almost feels like friction between attendings in anesthesiology in the same group can be even a little worse than radiology when there's conflict.
- Money in anesthesiology is pretty good and seems like it is on par with rads, especially if one is willing to do locums. I don't know much about locum opportunities, but it seems to be more available than in radiology.
- Job market in radiology seems a little more versatile and can be tailored to one's desires more easily. Although it seems like if one is willing to give up some money, you can find some crazy cush work setups in anesthesia.
- Dealing with surgeons in anesthesiology is a hit or miss it seems. The problem is that if it's a malignant surgeon, you're stuck with them in the OR for several hours. In radiology, the surgeon may throw some words but once you hang up the phone or close the email it's over (most of the time).
- Culture seems to be more easygoing in anesthesia than in radiology, although I'd guess this is institution dependent. In general, it feels like rads folks are just wired people vs dare I say a more "chill" personality in anesthesia. Again, idk this may totally be institutional dependent.
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IMPRESSION:
Overall, I think at my stage, I'm not so sure if it's worth switching with half of rads training under my belt. There's a big risk that once I announce a desire to switch, I may end up with nothing because I'd lose my spot and may not get the support/letters to match. I really dread the studying and excessive memorization of insurmountable pathologies in all the body systems and how they present. Because of this dread I have to put in extra work to make progress. I hope things get better. I think after talking to people, advice on here, and personal conversations and exposure in both fields, I'd say I'm 80% leaning towards staying at this point. Still, at this point in time, I kind of wish I picked a shorter and less cerebral specialty. I'm grateful I have a job at the moment.
Do they all dislike their jobs as much as this lot? 
