Anesthesiology: Length of typical career?

[panamamike]

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Wondering how long the typical Anesthesiologist works in their field. If one can get through all of the hurdles of education, I'm wondering how many wash out due to lawsuits related to human error.

I also hear it can be a stressful job. Any input matter on the career would be a plus.

Regards,

Mike

 

[karizma098]

i think the average anesthesiologist starts working around their early 30's and usually works up until their early 60's or later. probably a 25-30 year career is pretty standard?

as far as lawsuits and stress, it's there, but your'e not getting sued like the OB/GYN guys, or burning out like the ER docs . i've yet to see an anesthesiologist have to quit their job bc of lawsuits, or stop working bc they are burned out, and i've met a lot. i'm sure there are exceptions, as there are with any field.

 

[sebsvenmdc]

Wondering how long the typical Anesthesiologist works in their field. If one can get through all of the hurdles of education, I'm wondering how many wash out due to lawsuits related to human error.

I also hear it can be a stressful job. Any input matter on the career would be a plus.

Regards,

Mike

I think surgery is much more stressful. Yes, anesthesiologists are responsible for keeping patients alive, but from my little experience in the ORs...it seems that there are a ton more ways to screw up in surgery. I'm not undermining the importance or job description of anesthesiology. Indeed, this is the career I am pursuing. At the moment, I'm just more fond of the anesthesiologist's approach in terms of management of patients. You can have very clean interventions...i.e. either giving a drug or not, adjusting the dose to a discrete value, watching for specific parameters to change...and the interaction with the airway is augmented by data interpretation (pulse ox, ABGs, etc) versus REALLY relying on your eyes and messing around in abdominal cavities in the vicinity of nerves, arteries, ureters, and delicate structures. I told my mom about an analogy the other night...I compared the surgeon to the plumber and the anesthesiologist to the hydraulic engineer. They connect the pipes and cover the construction/reconfiguration of plumbing...we concurrently run a battery of tests to ensure quality control from a systems-based perspective. The latter floats my boat.

 

[omegaman]

"We found the average age of retirement among American anesthesiologists to be 64.1 yr, with a range from 49 to 77 yr. A number of factors influenced retirement age, but the most significant was defined by the nature of the individual’s practice. Those in private practice retired younger (age 62.5 yr) as compared with anesthesiologists in university practice (64.8 yr). "

""Anesthetists in the British National Health System have excesses in both ill-health and normal, early-age retirements. Within the British National Health System as of 1997, the median retirement age for anesthesiologists was 53.4 yr, as compared with 56.6 yr for other doctors. ""


from;
Issues of Concern for the Aging Anesthesiologist

1. Jonathan D. Katz, MD

i think the average anesthesiologist starts working around their early 30's and usually works up until their early 60's or later. probably a 25-30 year career is pretty standard?