discouragement

[lakersbaby]

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hey guys, im a 3rd year student and am choosing anesthesia as my career but its rough when everyone around me including multiple anesthesiologists i rotate with tell me that i wont be a real doctor. they keep telling me to be prepared to be a "waiter" and be waiting on the surgeon hand and foot. although none of this has changed my desire to pursue anesthesia, its just a bit disheartening. just needed to vent.

 

[Masseter Spasm]

Things real doctors do:
Fill out forms
Call insurance company
Write prescriptions for stool softeners
Discharge planning
Dictate or write lengthy notes
Round
Clinic
Disimpact constipated patients
etc.

If this means I am not a "real doctor" so be it. I will stick to keeping patients safe and comfortable for common and complex procedures that might otherwise be harmful without the availability of anesthesia.

 

[cfdavid]

One of the reasons I believe I landed my first choice for residency is because of the fact that, in my PS, I literally used the words CUSTOMER SERVICE.

While on that particular interview, both the chairman as well as the PD BOTH, separately, used those exact words. And, they stressed them.

So, is it very much a "service" driven career?? Personally, I believe so. Is this bad? IMHO, not at all, and truly I believe (granted without very much experience yet) that this aspect of the job leaves open a wide variety of ways in which the services of an anesthesiologist can be marketed, which = opportunity.

Don't be discouraged. As I sit on my a.s awaiting the horrors LOL of intern year, I often find myself reflecting on the fact that I'm extremely happy about my decision to pursue gas as a career. Sure, things will get tough, but no job is perfect. Far from it.

cf

 

[orangele]

Based on my personal experience, when the time comes to begin your practice, I would recommend finding a practice where there is a decent payor mix which supports your practice without supplements from the hospital (even if this means a lower income). When a hospital must pay a supplement to support your services, they begin to view you more as an employee and less as a physician.

With the passage of healthcare reform, I think it will be more and more difficult to find self-supporting anesthesiology practices. The very fact that hospitals must supplement anesthesiologists income, above what billings generate indicates that anesthesiologists services are already undervalued by the government and insurance companies.

 

[polkadotcap]

When a fat eclamptic patient rolls into OB seizing and vomiting all over herself and everyone is screaming for you while priority number one of everyone else seems to be getting her baby on a monitor, and you step in, get an IV and manage her airway with little help aside from someone who was able to hand you an 18 gauge angiocath, tell me then that you are not a "real doctor."

You won't get a lot of thank yous but I promise you you will walk about of the hospital at night KNOWING you helped a lot of people- kept them safe, maybe even saved their life. That's a whole hell of a lot more than the average internist can say on a typical day of BS paperwork and discharge planning, I can ASSURE you of that. Oh, and your pager is a whole hell of a lot quieter. 👍👍 in my book.

 

[bigeyedfish]

hey guys, im a 3rd year student and am choosing anesthesia as my career but its rough when everyone around me including multiple anesthesiologists i rotate with tell me that i wont be a real doctor. they keep telling me to be prepared to be a "waiter" and be waiting on the surgeon hand and foot. although none of this has changed my desire to pursue anesthesia, its just a bit disheartening. just needed to vent.

In that situation I like a roundhouse kick to the face. Chuck Norris style.

 

[IN2B8R]

Very true. But there is also the more common scenarios:

-The orthopod who can't get there to do his hip fracture till after 7pm because he wants to go to his kids hockey practice. Of course there is lots of time on the schedule today and tomorrow but he has office hours then.
-The OB or better yet OB nurse who complains about you taking 30 minutes to get to the bedside for an elective epidural.
-The urologist who wants to do a stone @ 3am because it is convenient for him to do so when you have seen the same guy put them off for 24 hours because it is convenient for him @ that time. Both non septic patients.
-The OB who show up @ 5:30 pm after office hours who now wants to do a Csection for what in reality is failure to progress on a patient who has been stable for hours, but he had office hours so he didn't want to come but now lies saying the tracing looks bad because he wants to go home and doesn't want to wait an hour for the call team so other members of your department get stuck.
-The ICU doc who doesn't want to come in asks you to intubate and line his new admit @ 3am.
-The high volume surgeon who was sick on Thursday asks if you could run an extra room for him on Saturday doing his cancelled elective cases.

etc., etc.

Yes the above is part of good service. There should be a give and take on issues like these and some ability to say no. But in reality some departments have little to no ability to say no to any of the above.

Thus the reason for the original post in this thread.

I wouldn't have trouble with that one if I was on call and was getting paid for it. But to have to come in because some other lazy SOB decided that he was not coming in and wants me to come in to do that ****? Fuuug that! Not where I practice, bro'....

 

[InductionAgent]

hey guys, im a 3rd year student and am choosing anesthesia as my career but its rough when everyone around me including multiple anesthesiologists i rotate with tell me that i wont be a real doctor. they keep telling me to be prepared to be a "waiter" and be waiting on the surgeon hand and foot. although none of this has changed my desire to pursue anesthesia, its just a bit disheartening. just needed to vent.

It's May of your third year. You still have time to make up your mind about your specialty. If you need to be in the spotlight, then anesthesiology may not be for you. If you can accept all the reasonable ramifications of the fact the patients are primarily in the OR to get surgery, and not anesthesia, then you'll be OK.

 

[Gaseous Clay]

I guess if a "waiter" is defined as someone who will be making $xxx,xxx/year, work 40-50 hours/week, gets to turn my pager off when I leave the hospital, and never receive a home phone call from a patient ... well then I am glad I picked the customer service industry.

Oh, and the OP sounds like a flame to me.

 

[Engin]

For the above post, that answer makes it feel like a lose-lose situation. If we mention the perks of anesthesia, we get called lazy by out fellow med students. They do it half-jokingly, but its apparent they believe mean some of it.

I'm okay with that. But I haven't found a good comeback response for the snarky comments after telling someone you're into anesthesia.

"You're just lazy," "What you don't like patients? Yours will be be always sleeping," "Why did you go to med school to be a nurse?" "You're gonna be out of a job when the CRNAs takeover," "It's so boring!" etc.

Part of the comments happen because every specialty gets busted on by everyone else. Part of it is jealousy at our lifestyle. Part of it comes from being taken advantage of by the commentator for being cool chill people who they know wont blow up at them.

Its cool, but the worse thing we can do IMO is become defensive when someone calls us out. I don't want to be the anesthesiologist telling the intern that "we're doctos too (what I heard during my OB-gyn rotation and still makes me cringe).

 

[DO4lifer]

What is a real doctor?

someone who went to grad school for a doctorate?
a person who went to medical school?
someone who finished residency?
a licensed physician?

As far as I know, all "real doctors" fall as Yes to these questions including anesthesiologists.


Does it mean you have to take care of patients?

I guess non interventional radiologists and pathologists aren't real doctors


Does it mean a job that nurses do?

I guess every primary care specialty is out because I've seen nurse practioners doing it INDEPENDENTLY.


Boring?

So is derm, PMR, urology, and surgery.

Furthermore, boring is rounding on 30 patients.


CRNAs will take over?

Is that before or after NPs take over primary care? (i.e. never)

 

[sevo85288]

Every field of medicine (and every career for that matter) has its positives and negatives. In primary care you get to deal with annoying pts and families, insurance companies, office employees, dangerous MAs, and business issues, etc. In anesthesia you are there to work b/t 6 am and 3 pm and on call and then you are free. While the annoying surgeon and OB still has to deal with headaches all day. Have you spent some time rounding in a community hospital or clinic? How about dealing with some over-zealous, know-it all parents in peds? How about doing cardiac surgery on 86 yr old wrecks whose ungrateful families threaten to sue you; oh and you have to kiss the cardiologists butts all the time. Wake up. This is life. Nothing is perfect.

 

[lakersbaby]

im actually not a flame. was just a little annoyed of anesthesia attendings trying to discourage me from pursuing their field. but thanks to everyone else here for bringing me back to it.

 

[Sergio99]

There are a lot of departments where anesthesiologists get beat up on by surgeons and administration won't stand by us because the surgeons are the ones that bring patients to the hospital. Not sure how prevalent this is, but it definitely is out there.

Hello,

It is very prevalent, extremely prevalent, exceedingly prevalent.

However, the intellectual and emotional rewards of the specialty more than make up for that if you are doing it for the right reasons, that is, if you do it because you like physiology, pharmacology, helping patients and, why not, helping surgeons. Remember that in spite of all they say about us, they cannot work without us.

So the moral of the story is, if you like the specialty and feel that it is your calling, don't worry about what others say. In every specialty there is always room for people who want to be good and excel. And the flip side of the coin is that, if anesthesia is your calling, you will not be happy in any other specialty.

Greetings

 

[igottaquestion]

what are some of the intellectual rewards?

 

[CrazyJake]

Intellectual Reward Example - yesterday during the 4 vessel CABG I was assisting on, thought and used more of my medical and pharmacy education than I had in a long time. Anatomy, Pharm, Phys, Patho, Physics...the list could easily go on.

On my peds rotation last month, mindless.
Love my kids and telling parents that the snotty stuff coming out of juniors nose is just a cold...but I was so bored.

And for Lakersbaby, when after the pump run the pt decided to try a little VTac for awhile yesterday, I think he would have been pretty happy (if awake) to know this was corrected by his 'waiter' at the bedside while 'his' surgeon just stood there watching.

Goodluck.

CrazyJake

 

[CrazyJake]

Lakersbaby P.S - Lakers in 6.

 

[2win]

Hello,

It is very prevalent, extremely prevalent, exceedingly prevalent.

However, the intellectual and emotional rewards of the specialty more than make up for that if you are doing it for the right reasons, that is, if you do it because you like physiology, pharmacology, helping patients and, why not, helping surgeons. Remember that in spite of all they say about us, they cannot work without us.

So the moral of the story is, if you like the specialty and feel that it is your calling, don't worry about what others say. In every specialty there is always room for people who want to be good and excel. And the flip side of the coin is that, if anesthesia is your calling, you will not be happy in any other specialty.

Greetings

There is only one reward. And the reward is MONEY.
As long I will be paid as I WANT - I will continue to do anesthesia. And this is valid for any profession or service.
The rest of the word mentioned by others (pride, satisfaction, physiology, serving...) are just smoke.
Wake up brothers...
2win