I trying to decide on a specialty and am considering anesthesiology. I wanted to know what people in the field of anesthesiology felt were the best part of being an anesthesiologist and what people feel the down-sides are of the field. Thanks!
Best and Worst
- Thread starter jajtufts
- Start date
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2002
- Messages
- 917
- Reaction score
- 41
Best: It is an acute care field. Every case is critical care, acute medicine. You get to make a plan and see things happen all in a short period of time. You also get to do things that freak most other docs out, big lines, intubations galore, pushing pressors and other vasoactive drugs, managing huge blood losses. Things that would have most internists screaming for help. It's also a very diverse field. You can specialize in peds and have minimal if any adult contact, if you like cardio stuff you do a fellowship and are the cardiologist in the OR performing TEE's and generally working with a high risk population. If you like neuro you train in all of the neuro monitoring devices in the OR. If you desire more outpatient 'doctor' like things you can do pain management. If you like the ICU, the best route to this is anesthesia in my opinion. Love OB?, there's a fellowship in that as well. In all areas of anesthesia though, there is use of medical knowledge from all specialties. You need to know your peds, OB, surgery, even psych.
Worst: From what I have seen, it is stressful. 8 hours in the OR is vastly different from 8 hours in an office or on the wards. Like I said before, every case is an acute critical care situation. A radiologist once told me that rads and anesthesia are the most underappreciated specialties in terms of stress. Just like every mammogram or CT scan could contain a small finding that must not be missed, everything you do in anesthesia has the potential to go very very wrong.
Also, it is not a 'traditional doctoring' type of field. For the most part there is little in the way of long term patient relationships. Patients may or may not know or respect what you do. Other physicians might not respect you either, though I sense that outside of academic circles this is much much less.
I have heard other med students say things like 'won't that be boring?' or 'geez all they do is read the paper!'. In my opinion, the 'boredom' factor is probably there to some extent in easy cases as an experienced attending. But you dictate this by where you practice. I know of attendings who are more than happy to do lap choles all day and others who wouldn't go a week without a peds heart or liver transplant. Realize though that to look bored is to be really good about what you are doing. People love to raise the CRNA issue to trash the field as well. Look at it this way, they've been around for many many years. They're not going to go away and neither will MD's who do anesthesia. Personally I think they're great. They tend to do easier cases and leave the fun stuff for the MD's. I don't think they will ever gain true independence, and even if they do it won't mean the end of MD's. There will always be enough hearts, neuro, OB, peds, pain, etc. to go around that CRNA's won't touch. Ever see an interventional pain CRNA? No, and you won't either, same goes for ICU.
Another downside is that it is a 24 hour specialty. You will be hard pressed to find one that isn't these days though. There will always be calls in anesthesia, but it varies greatly. There are groups of only a few people that take call a lot, and some of 30-50 people who obviously spend few nights in the hospital.
Overall, the good things about anesthesia FAR outweigh the bad. It is an excellent specialty choice, and getting quite popular I might add. One important thing to look for in a specialty is what specialties do other practicing doctors go into when they burn out or whatever. An overwhelming majority do anesthesia. You will find loads of former internists, pediatricians, family practitioners, ER docs, even surgeons. Now how many people leave anesthesia to be an internist for example? Probably not too many. Any other questions?
Worst: From what I have seen, it is stressful. 8 hours in the OR is vastly different from 8 hours in an office or on the wards. Like I said before, every case is an acute critical care situation. A radiologist once told me that rads and anesthesia are the most underappreciated specialties in terms of stress. Just like every mammogram or CT scan could contain a small finding that must not be missed, everything you do in anesthesia has the potential to go very very wrong.
Also, it is not a 'traditional doctoring' type of field. For the most part there is little in the way of long term patient relationships. Patients may or may not know or respect what you do. Other physicians might not respect you either, though I sense that outside of academic circles this is much much less.
I have heard other med students say things like 'won't that be boring?' or 'geez all they do is read the paper!'. In my opinion, the 'boredom' factor is probably there to some extent in easy cases as an experienced attending. But you dictate this by where you practice. I know of attendings who are more than happy to do lap choles all day and others who wouldn't go a week without a peds heart or liver transplant. Realize though that to look bored is to be really good about what you are doing. People love to raise the CRNA issue to trash the field as well. Look at it this way, they've been around for many many years. They're not going to go away and neither will MD's who do anesthesia. Personally I think they're great. They tend to do easier cases and leave the fun stuff for the MD's. I don't think they will ever gain true independence, and even if they do it won't mean the end of MD's. There will always be enough hearts, neuro, OB, peds, pain, etc. to go around that CRNA's won't touch. Ever see an interventional pain CRNA? No, and you won't either, same goes for ICU.
Another downside is that it is a 24 hour specialty. You will be hard pressed to find one that isn't these days though. There will always be calls in anesthesia, but it varies greatly. There are groups of only a few people that take call a lot, and some of 30-50 people who obviously spend few nights in the hospital.
Overall, the good things about anesthesia FAR outweigh the bad. It is an excellent specialty choice, and getting quite popular I might add. One important thing to look for in a specialty is what specialties do other practicing doctors go into when they burn out or whatever. An overwhelming majority do anesthesia. You will find loads of former internists, pediatricians, family practitioners, ER docs, even surgeons. Now how many people leave anesthesia to be an internist for example? Probably not too many. Any other questions?
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2001
- Messages
- 96
- Reaction score
- 0
nice post 2nd yr.. i totally agree with what you said
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2003
- Messages
- 233
- Reaction score
- 2
Talk about boring. Im doing an Occupational Med elective right now. 9 hrs in clinic filled with pre-employment physicals (of course I get to do um all..S.C.U.T) and workers comp cases is MIND-NUMBING. At least anesthesia provides lots of variety and stimulation. Yeah you are stuck in the OR the majority of the time but I was never bored. There is usually something to do..chart, lines, move the table etc... No offense to anyone but I would cry if I had to do some of these other specialties.
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2003
- Messages
- 3,114
- Reaction score
- 880
I'm working in a busy ER now and I swear if I have to beat another patient senseless with questions just to answer the golden - WHY DID YOU COME TO THE HOSPITAL... TODAY??? - I may literally start beating them. I love establishing rapport with patients, and showing them that I care, but I hate trying to figure out their stories. Almost invariably 90%+ should have just made a doctor's appointment. I don't know how these ER attendings don't go insane. Today I got to do some procedures, which made the time pass quicker. I love that anesthesiology is entirely procedural- you're always doing something, even if it's just watching the monitors.
