Clinical year med student here considering anesthesiology for a multitude of reasons. One of the things everyone says is that anesthesiologists are masters of physiology and understand it at a deeper level than most other physicians. I’m wondering why that’s the case? Lots of other specialties (internal medicine, ICU, etc) need to understand physiology for their job so what is it about anesthesiology that requires even deeper knowledge? Just curious as this is something I hear super commonly.
Why are anesthesiologists masters of physiology?
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We manipulate it constantly and see the effects in real time. Granted many patients are reasonably healthy.. but we have a fair share of super sick patients as well. Think icu but faster.
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That’s what our whole written boards are about too. It’s interesting stuff (at least to me), but if physiology is not your cup of tea, then the tests may be onerous. It’s not hard math, nothing beyond multiplication, division
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Most anesthesiologists I know are excellent at fishing. I guess you could say they are master baiters.
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Other specialties are dealing with physiology on an hour-by-hour basis, while anesthesia deals with it on a second by second basis. Couple that with anesthesia generally occurring during the most stimulating portion of an individual's life (surgery, childbirth, respiratory failure) and it's easy to see the difference in training.
I would not base your career choice on this.
Pick your passion and go for it.
Don’t go by physiology as the defining aspect of anesthesiology as a discipline - of course it is, but that’s not all. The biggest stressors for most anesthesiologists is not the clinical aspect of care - it’s early hours and being present and under pressure at work, working with unreasonable surgeons at times, calls, labor, work schedule and how to balance their work and life. Basically you are a booty call specialty masqueraded as a ‘service based profession’.
You’ll meet workaholics and really lazy ones, and majority of the crowd in between…ofcourse you won’t be exposed to that as a medical student.
I don’t think any specialty is inferior or superior.
In fact as I progress in my career, I have begun to really appreciate hard working family medicine doctors who know their patients over years and develop good doctor patent relationships and manage them well - often times, surgery is prevented because of their effective management (esp. bariatric s, vascular, cardiac etc).
Even if you choose anesthesiology, don’t forget the “whole patient” approach to the patient.
Anesthesia has physiology but it’s a lot of same and common issues intra op which can be anticipated and managed and it becomes second nature over time.
But yes, it’s a very decent speciality with very rich history and impact on human health - so despite the political climate and reimbursement challenges, you’ll enjoy it.
Good luck.
Don’t go by physiology as the defining aspect of anesthesiology as a discipline - of course it is, but that’s not all. The biggest stressors for most anesthesiologists is not the clinical aspect of care - it’s early hours and being present and under pressure at work, working with unreasonable surgeons at times, calls, labor, work schedule and how to balance their work and life. Basically you are a booty call specialty masqueraded as a ‘service based profession’.
You’ll meet workaholics and really lazy ones, and majority of the crowd in between…ofcourse you won’t be exposed to that as a medical student.
I don’t think any specialty is inferior or superior.
In fact as I progress in my career, I have begun to really appreciate hard working family medicine doctors who know their patients over years and develop good doctor patent relationships and manage them well - often times, surgery is prevented because of their effective management (esp. bariatric s, vascular, cardiac etc).
Even if you choose anesthesiology, don’t forget the “whole patient” approach to the patient.
Anesthesia has physiology but it’s a lot of same and common issues intra op which can be anticipated and managed and it becomes second nature over time.
But yes, it’s a very decent speciality with very rich history and impact on human health - so despite the political climate and reimbursement challenges, you’ll enjoy it.
Good luck.
Yes. I love working with ENT docs too.
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Eh. I’d add Ortho surgeons to those occasionally interested in physiology, especially during shoulder arthroscopies. “What’s the blood pressure?…” 😂
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Physiology is the domain and these people are “masters of their domain.”
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The blood pressure is ancef/ancef (ancef).
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If ancef allergy then vanco and/or clinda
And TXA for everyone.
Boom. Ortho pharmacology complete.
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There's aspirin in there too, and pain meds so they can decrease phone calls overnight.
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Shoot I've got like 35 years experience.
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They also have the hottest wags
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Usually no matter what you say, (e.g 60/30) there’s too much bleeding and they want it lower.
