anesthesia 911

[2win]

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Sorry to be the one that is starting this bearish thread -
I just browsed gaswork and few other sites with anesthesia jobs.
Guys - we are going down.
300K - the hospitalist is getting that.
No jobs and no money.
WTF?
ask your program director about that...
Although most of them are totally innocent.
They graduated - they got a job in academics.
They know shi***t about real life.
Everything is about their CHAIRMAN and if they can get A RISE...
Pathetic.
Change your specialty if you can.
ASAP
From an old man - who doesn't care anymore about that.

 

[chocomorsel]

So I don't understand. You want us to complain to our chairman's that 300k is peanuts and that we should make at least what? 400/500? What is a good number? So what if the hospitalist is making that? I don't care. I will be happy to make that too. I think we all know by now that the good old days of getting rich and retiring early from medicine are probably over. But we are still making enough money to raise a household with 2.5 kids without hurting, put them thru school and take a couple of nice vacations a year. And still save up nicely on retirement.

Sorry, but I don't see what you are getting at.

 

[dikoerastenie]

.

 

[maceo]

Sorry, but I don't see what you are getting at.

you will someday get it. YOu will.

 

[DO Anes]

ask your program director about that...
Although most of them are totally innocent.
They graduated - they got a job in academics.
They know shi***t about real life.
Everything is about their CHAIRMAN and if they can get A RISE...
Pathetic.

Are you suggesting that somehow chairs and PD's are able to waive a magic wand and change the laws of basic economics? Or maybe there is an "easy" button than can be pushed by the academics to remove the tax and spend big government democrats driving what's left of the economy and the health care system over a cliff?
Sounds like the academics are not the only ones who know **** about real life.

 

[thegasman]

Are you suggesting that somehow chairs and PD's are able to waive a magic wand and change the laws of basic economics? Or maybe there is an "easy" button than can be pushed by the academics to remove the tax and spend big government democrats driving what's left of the economy and the health care system over a cliff?
Sounds like the academics are not the only ones who know **** about real life.

I think what he means is that if the chairs and pd's would stop training crnas to take our jobs it might be helpful. These nurses are actively seeking to replace us and we are giving them all the tools to do it. Just a thought.

 

[Mman]

Sorry to be the one that is starting this bearish thread -
I just browsed gaswork and few other sites with anesthesia jobs.

We should at least acknowledge that probably none (or at the most very few) of the good jobs are advertised on websites. That's where you go when you can't find anybody else to fill the job.

The great gigs that pay well do not need to advertise.

 

[Idiopathic]

Sorry to be the one that is starting this bearish thread -

 

[chocomorsel]

I think what he means is that if the chairs and pd's would stop training crnas to take our jobs it might be helpful. These nurses are actively seeking to replace us and we are giving them all the tools to do it. Just a thought.

Ok this I can agree with. So I guess we would ask them to start an AA program instead or increase their residency slots?

 

[GoodmanBrown]

Sorry to be the one that is starting this bearish thread -
I just browsed gaswork and few other sites with anesthesia jobs.
Guys - we are going down.
300K - the hospitalist is getting that.
No jobs and no money.
WTF?
ask your program director about that...
Although most of them are totally innocent.
They graduated - they got a job in academics.
They know shi***t about real life.
Everything is about their CHAIRMAN and if they can get A RISE...
Pathetic.
Change your specialty if you can.
ASAP
From an old man - who doesn't care anymore about that.

Let me lay out the facts as I see them. Please correct me if I'm wrong on anything.

1) Gaswork is a website devoted entirely to anesthesia jobs, with many of the postings being spots for anesthesiologists.
2) Most jobs on the site pay a minimum of 300K per year, with some being advertised at up to 400K. This is your starting salary.
3) It is widely believed that Gaswork has poorer job offers than what you can find with some connections.

 

[yasawa]

Change my specialty to what exactly? If you're not going into derm, plastics, or interventional cards/rads, 300K is a good salary. I know GI docs, reg cards and radiologists who are making that much. At the end of the day, we are still making the same amount as some of the other lucrative fields. My friend's dad from high school is an anesthesiologist and still makes more than his mom who is a cardiologist. Both are working full time at the same hospital. The anesthesiologists in our field who are only concerned with making money are the ones who are willing to supervise CRNAs. In some hospitals, I know for a fact that CRNAs would not exist if anesthesiologists were willing to work longer hours and take more call for the same amount of pay. If groups were willing to offer the same services + extra call for the same package or a little bit less, hospital admins would love to have an all MD group. The problem is that some groups are not willing to do this and thus the CRNAs are brought in. My uncle was the president of his anesthesiology group for years so I know first hand all the BS that he has had to deal with from the hospital admins.

I do agree with the Chair comment. Academic depts need to stop selling out our field. I hope Duke is the first to do this, esp after that comment by the nursing dean. I read one comment that the hosp "needs" CRNAs to func. That is total BS. If that is truly the case, inc res spots to 24/year and hire AAs to fill the gaps.

 

[frank51]

Also starting salary for hospitalists is about 175, that's basically 7 days on, 7 days off, I'm sure you can make more if you're willing to work more, non-interventional Cardiologists aren't making much more, mid 200s, GI used to be good, but they've gotten hit too, you can still do well but that would mean you would only do a lot of screening colonoscopies on healthy insured patients, a setup that's very hard to achieve. Radiologists are getting hit too, that means reading more studies, faster, to maintain your salary, and you better not miss anything, cuz that's very hard to defend in court. These are just some examples, so if Cards and GI are putting 6 years into residency and are starting off w/mid 200s at most, why is it not reasonable for the starting salary of Anesthesiologists to be in the mid 200s?

 

[countingdays]

Change my specialty to what exactly? If you're not going into derm, plastics, or interventional cards/rads, 300K is a good salary. I know GI docs, reg cards and radiologists who are making that much. At the end of the day, we are still making the same amount as some of the other lucrative fields. My friend's dad from high school is an anesthesiologist and still makes more than his mom who is a cardiologist. Both are working full time at the same hospital. The anesthesiologists in our field who are only concerned with making money are the ones who are willing to supervise CRNAs. In some hospitals, I know for a fact that CRNAs would not exist if anesthesiologists were willing to work longer hours and take more call for the same amount of pay. If groups were willing to offer the same services + extra call for the same package or a little bit less, hospital admins would love to have an all MD group. The problem is that some groups are not willing to do this and thus the CRNAs are brought in. My uncle was the president of his anesthesiology group for years so I know first hand all the BS that he has had to deal with from the hospital admins.

I do agree with the Chair comment. Academic depts need to stop selling out our field. I hope Duke is the first to do this, esp after that comment by the nursing dean. I read one comment that the hosp "needs" CRNAs to func. That is total BS. If that is truly the case, inc res spots to 24/year and hire AAs to fill the gaps.

Increasing resident spots is not a viable option long term. Sure an academic program can cover the ORs on the cheap using residents, but those residents need to get good jobs when they finish residency.
It's hard enough to find a good job as it is. If they increase the number of residents, people are going to be either unemployed or exploited by private practice groups. The two ways an increasing number of residents would be able to find jobs is if groups converted from care team to MD only or if they get hired at crna salary in a non-partnership tract, getting screwed their whole careers, positions. Converting to MD only would be a decision for senior group members, not new grads. I don't see them sacrificing their salaries for the sake of our specialty or for the sake of fairness. It just isn't going to happen, so new grads will face the remaining options of unemployment vs low pay.
Many people running private practice groups have shown their willingness to f over new grads. If more new grads are available and recruiting anywhere gets easier, you can be sure that even more PP groups will convert to the f the new grad model.

 

[GasEmDee]

I think what he means is that if the chairs and pd's would stop training crnas to take our jobs it might be helpful. These nurses are actively seeking to replace us and we are giving them all the tools to do it. Just a thought.

At this point, academia has very little to do with it. The CRNA boat has left the dock. CRNAs can train themselves to their own standards. (The standards of anesthesiologist training don't apply.)

It is now an issue of economics and politics.

 

[GasEmDee]

I do agree with the Chair comment. Academic depts need to stop selling out our field. I hope Duke is the first to do this, esp after that comment by the nursing dean. I read one comment that the hosp "needs" CRNAs to func. That is total BS. If that is truly the case, inc res spots to 24/year and hire AAs to fill the gaps.

I do not think academic departments are the real culprits. The sell outs are the private practice anesthesiologists who wanted to bill for 4 rooms by using 4 CRNAS and then never showing up except to sign paperwork.

Everyone here remembers their residency experience -- the annoyance and anger at lazy, incompetent attendings who billed for your case while you as the resident did all the real work and sat the case. It is exactly the same situation with these PP anesthesiologists and their CRNAs.

How could a CRNA not want independence, if working like this on a daily basis?

Academic anesthesiologists have residents to abuse. They don't need tons of CRNAs. It's the greedy private practice guys who put us here.

I agree with the rest of your post.

BTW: I am in an MD-only PP, and I have also attended at a major academic center that has 60+ residents and no CRNAs.

 

[335230]

ok.

 

[gaspasser2004]

When I hear people, especially residents, lamenting the loss of the MD-only jobs, I think about how the people who used to shovel up horse crap felt when the automobile was invented. Unfortunately, the age of MD-only work has passed - those jobs will only continue to go away.

Like it or not, the wave of the future is to have more mid-level involvement with physicians leading the team. Does it really make sense for a board certified anesthesiologist to sit in on every case when a midlevel can do the monitoring just as well? The real value physician anesthesiologists bring to the system is the medical decision making. Most of the real decision making occurs before the intraoperative anesthetic - deciding which patients can proceed to the OR and how they should be anesthetized is what separates an MD from a CRNA. It is much more efficient to the system to have MD's spending most of their day making these medical decisions rather than sitting on a stool charting vitals.

The only thing certain is change. We can moan all we want about the "good old days" but the reality is that we must adapt to change to be successful. Twenty years from now, our jobs will be much different than they are now. We will have new technology, there will be new expectations and the patients will most likely be even sicker (and older). Those of us who embrace this change will prosper.

 

[IDBasco]

Here is what I found:
http://www.merritthawkins.com/uploadedFiles/MerrittHawkings/Surveys/mha2010incentivesurvPDF.pdf

We are near the top, admittedly not at the top.

Probably the hardest hitting part of that report-

Demand for certain specialties, anesthesiology and radiology in particular, has been somewhat inhibited by the economy or by reimbursement changes. A decrease in both elective procedures and non-elective procedures has eroded demand for anesthesiologists at a time when many medical school graduates are choosing to specialize in anesthesiology.