anesthesia vs ortho

[OrthoOrGas]

Hey guys, I'm a 4th year stuck between gas and ortho. I like them both, but now I actually have to make the big decision.

Anesthesia: I like the independence and ability to do all the critical care stuff that not many others are comfortable with. The life style is probably better too. Major concern is boredom and regretting not doing ortho, but to be honest if I did ortho I worry that I would regret not doing anesthesia...catch 22 i guess. I also like planning and directing patient care which I feel is not what anesthesia is about as much.

Ortho: Cool procedures. Definitely help people with lifestyle issues (total knees and hips, etc). Longer hours, worse lifestyle, though certainly not as bad as general surgery.

Both have some great people to work with. In some ways I think that I can't go wrong, but on the other hand its the rest of my life and I don't want to **** it up. I've done a lot of ortho research, although I'm sure anesthesia programs won't care and will just consider it good research in regardless of the area.

Any thoughts? I'm pretty stressed about this right now because I need to start getting my application together.

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[jetproppilot]

Call me skeptical of you but hey, I'm Jet the FBI Profiler.

Your first post, huh? Hmmmmmmm......

I'd say most students would've posted long before crunch time....or posted in the ortho forum too.....why post just here?

Kind of a weird post for someones first post......and being weary of trolls ((HEY APMA!!!!.....awww you know I'm kidding, huh?), well, just chekkin.

 

[pushthesux]

Hey guys, I'm a 4th year stuck between gas and ortho. I like them both, but now I actually have to make the big decision.

Anesthesia: I like the independence and ability to do all the critical care stuff that not many others are comfortable with. The life style is probably better too. Major concern is boredom and regretting not doing ortho, but to be honest if I did ortho I worry that I would regret not doing anesthesia...catch 22 i guess. I also like planning and directing patient care which I feel is not what anesthesia is about as much.

Ortho: Cool procedures. Definitely help people with lifestyle issues (total knees and hips, etc). Longer hours, worse lifestyle, though certainly not as bad as general surgery.

Both have some great people to work with. In some ways I think that I can't go wrong, but on the other hand its the rest of my life and I don't want to **** it up. I've done a lot of ortho research, although I'm sure anesthesia programs won't care and will just consider it good research in regardless of the area.

Any thoughts? I'm pretty stressed about this right now because I need to start getting my application together.

Most will tell you to just spend as much time as possible in both areas so that you are well informed.

Both fields have advantages over the other, and you pretty much pointed them out.

One key difference may depend on the amount of ego you have....you can't have much of an ego in anesthesia because you aren't respected for the most part because you're not really "the doctor".

Overall, I'm a CA-2 and definitely don't regret my decision with anesthesia. The boredom aspect of picking a specialty is really overrated and misunderstood. Anesthesia is NOT boring to me. I see what the ortho guys do on a daily basis...I consider what they do as boring. More importantly, boredom might actually be a good thing in the long run.

Good luck.

 

[OB1🤙]

There was a time in my life where I was strongly considering being a saw jockey, so I'll offer my opinion.

The differences between the two fields is HUGE. Which you pick should depend on which part of the operative management appeals to you.

Allow me to illustrate.

Couple weeks ago we had a suicide attempt- the cliff the lady picked to jump off wasn't high enough, and she ended up with a shattered hip and femur.

To the OR we go. Curtain up.

On their side of the curtain, they were having fun. This was far from a straightforward ortho case- they did their thing with skill and creativity. The problems they were solving were mechanical ones. As much as we joke around about orthopods (Bone Broke, Me Fix!), it takes serious skill to put shattered weight-bearing bones back together well.

On my side of the curtain, things were very different. This lady had lost a lot of blood, and I was playing catch-up. I had to get in an a-line, which was no easy task with her low BP. My anesthesia circuit developed a leak, and I had to diagnose and fix this critical problem while dealing with the other critical problem of her very labile pressures (turns out I'm good at blind tracheal intubations with OG tubes). And to top things off, she apparently had paroxysmal a-fib with RVR, and I was walking a very fine tightrope between rate controlling her RVR and maintaining her systemic BP. The problems I was solving were physiologic ones.

Forget all the crap about lifestyle. You'll work very hard in both fields, and will have time outside of the hospital in both fields.

You already know that if you make the wrong decision, you'll be looking jealously over at the other side of the drape.

So ask yourself, what makes you happiest? Do you want to solve mechanical problems, or physiologic ones?

 

[lfesiam]

Hey guys, I'm a 4th year stuck between gas and ortho. I like them both, but now I actually have to make the big decision.

Anesthesia: I like the independence and ability to do all the critical care stuff that not many others are comfortable with. The life style is probably better too. Major concern is boredom and regretting not doing ortho, but to be honest if I did ortho I worry that I would regret not doing anesthesia...catch 22 i guess. I also like planning and directing patient care which I feel is not what anesthesia is about as much.

Ortho: Cool procedures. Definitely help people with lifestyle issues (total knees and hips, etc). Longer hours, worse lifestyle, though certainly not as bad as general surgery.

Both have some great people to work with. In some ways I think that I can't go wrong, but on the other hand its the rest of my life and I don't want to **** it up. I've done a lot of ortho research, although I'm sure anesthesia programs won't care and will just consider it good research in regardless of the area.

Any thoughts? I'm pretty stressed about this right now because I need to start getting my application together.

here is my take...

1) Apply to both! Get both set of recs and let the computer decides your faith.

2) Apply to ortho! As for competitiveness, Ortho >> Anes. There will be a spot or two for CA1 years if you decided to change your mind later. Ortho spot post PGY-1 is a rarity from what I heard.

3) Apply to anesthesiology..why??? because it is simply the best field on earth.

 

[OrthoOrGas]

Call me skeptical of you but hey, I'm Jet the FBI Profiler.

Your first post, huh? Hmmmmmmm......

I'd say most students would've posted long before crunch time....or posted in the ortho forum too.....why post just here?

Kind of a weird post for someones first post......and being weary of trolls ((HEY APMA!!!!), well, just chekkin.

lol...not trying to troll. i've been looking around for a while. but i decided to try getting some outside advice. also, the ortho forum here sucks for advice...at least that was my impression after reading some threads. Plus not many people reading it anyways.


Thanks for your thoughts. If there are any others out there i'd love to here them...

 

[jetproppilot]

lol...not trying to troll. i've been looking around for a while. but i decided to try getting some outside advice. also, the ortho forum here sucks for advice...at least that was my impression after reading some threads. Plus not many people reading it anyways.


Thanks for your thoughts. If there are any others out there i'd love to here them...

Makes sense.

Thanks.

 

[jetproppilot]

Man, Dude, thats a rough call since they're so different.

I know some ortho guys with a pretty good lifestyle so don't not-select ortho for lifestyle reasons.

Rough man, rough.

What do you think, if you had to make a choice tomorrow?

 

[OrthoOrGas]

tell me about it.

right now, i'd go with Ortho because I know the department the best and have the most experience with them.

i thought about just applying in ortho and then if i hated it switching to anesthesia, but I feel that that would be a dick move on my part and dishonest to the ortho program that I matched to.

i'm meeting with the anesthesia program director later this week to talk things over with him and figure out where to go from here.

there's a lot to consider, and its hard to figure out how things are gonna be in 10 years and what i'm gonna want to be doing then compared to what i want now.

my father was an anesthesiologist and i swore i'd never go to medical school (wrong on that one) and then i swore i'd never want to do what he did (wrong again...lol).

anyways, things have a way of working out.

 

[ucsfgaspain]

tell me about it.

right now, i'd go with Ortho because I know the department the best and have the most experience with them.

i thought about just applying in ortho and then if i hated it switching to anesthesia, but I feel that that would be a dick move on my part and dishonest to the ortho program that I matched to.

i'm meeting with the anesthesia program director later this week to talk things over with him and figure out where to go from here.

there's a lot to consider, and its hard to figure out how things are gonna be in 10 years and what i'm gonna want to be doing then compared to what i want now.

my father was an anesthesiologist and i swore i'd never go to medical school (wrong on that one) and then i swore i'd never want to do what he did (wrong again...lol).

anyways, things have a way of working out.

As a son of an orthopod, I also was attracted to orthopaedics. I liked the sports medicine side of things since I'm an athlete. MOney is pretty good too. I chose anesthesia for various reasons probably the most important being that I liked the people I met during med school.

I have more time than most of the orthopods and don't have to deal with as much clinic B.S. as them...although I do have to some since I do pain. The field of ortho will really explode with all the research and products coming out for joints i.e. stem cells. Your political clout as an orthopaedist will be stronger than as an or anesthesiologist since you bring in business to the hospital.

However, with anesthesia you do have the advantage and it is a HUGE advantage in that you leave your work at the hospital. It's like ground hogs day...everyday is a new day nothing really hangs over you. Most people in anesthesia don't realize what a HUGE BOON this is. When you have a pain in the arse patient that follows you i.e. a complication from a procedure or lo and behold a case that is likely going to litigation...this really f*cks with your mental well being.

Tough choice, but from what I've read. Although not the politically correct thing to say, I would advise giving ortho a shot. You would find it easier to transfer from ortho to anesthesia than the other way around. Like someoneelse had avised you could hedge and apply to both.

Peace and good luck.

 

[PriorityMed]

OP, Also take a look at orthogate.org. It's like the SDN ortho forum on steroids. I feel your pain, it's difficult to find one field in medicine that encompasses everything that you hoped to do/see/experience in your professional career. I do like the mechanical vs. physiologic analogy, but I sure wish there was an orthoanesthesioradiologicointerventionalist residency program out there. Keep us posted.

 

[akpete]

I've been struggling with this decision for months as well. Good to see someone else enjoying both fields as usually the response I get from people is "Really? You like ortho and anesthesia? But they're so different!"

I've got everything set for my anesthesiology app. Meeting with ortho chair next week. Away rotation for ortho in Sept, and will likely make my decision based off that month. It'll either be apply for both or apply for anesthesiology for me.

 

[ZA_Gasman]

Let me help you on this one....
[Sarcasm on]
Do you
1.) Have a personality? - if so then you may be anesthesia material
2.) Ever fix mechanical things at home? - If no, then think carefully about ortho..
3.) Have an innate ability to think and visualise in 3D? - then orthofor you. In my experience, this cannot be taught. Either you have it, or you don't.
4.) Have any ability to read an ECG? - Then don't do ortho.
5.) Remember any drugs other than Cefazolin? - Anaesthesia!
6.) Consider the heart to be an important organ in the body (not just a muscle to pump cefazolin to the bones)? - Anaesthesia
7.) Enjoy having wet feet? - Ortho!
8.) Like old folks with fractured necks of femur? - Ortho!
[Sarcasm off]

Seriously, though, having done both, and having chosen gas, all I can advise is to try and get exposure to both. You won't know if you absolutely dislike ortho/gas until you've actually worked in the discipline. I always wanted to be an awful-pod, did it for a year and hey, my hands are not good enough, I hated doing tibias and femurs in the middle of the night, and I wasn't mentally stimulated. I tried gas for a change, and loved it. Now I'm an attending, having a great lifestyle, and am being continually mentally challenged almost every day.

But, my best mate is an orthopod, and he absolutely loves it. You gotta do what makes you happy. We put up with so much "taurus-coprology" in medicine, so you've got to do a specialty that makes you excited, so you want to go to work in the morning. If you don't then you're going to be very unhappy in 30years time.

[Climbs off soapbox, grabs coat]

 

[Hockeyguy]

I think both are great fields. One of by best friends from med school did ortho and I strongly considered it. I have nothing bad to say about it. It's a great field and I like working with those dudes. The reason I choose Anesthesiology was for the broader patient population (i.e. OB) and I didn't like clinic all that much. But you can't go wrong in either its a good problem to have.