I am just a lowly premed that wants to learn more about the anesthesiology career. Can someone direct me please to statistics that anesthesiologist are safer then CRNA's when it comes to adminstering anesthesia based on outcomes or morbidity. Hopefully a link. I am not trolling, I would like to see the stats on this. Thank you
Will
there are two "competing" (and methodologically flawed) studies, silber and pine, that come to different conclusions on this topic. you can go to pubmed to find them. however, the ensuing discussion generated by these two studies are what is most relevant, namely that the anesthesia care team involving an anesthesiologist seems to be the "safest" modality.
nonetheless, most agree that such studies are not the way to judge the difference between what a crna vs. an md/do anesthesiologist brings to the table. bad outcomes
directly related to the anesthetic involve a multitude of individual patient factors including age, co-morbidity at time of surgery, type of procedure, surgeon skill, etc.
generally speaking, the majority of crna's will be involved in less complex cases at non-tertiary centers which skews any attempt at meaningful post hoc study. and, such studies likewise don't speak to
individual ability. clearly, some crna's function at a much higher level than some anesthesiologists, which has a lot to do with the person behind the license and not the license itself. however, what remains paramount is the "mean" level and what training has gone into generating a licensee. as well, it has to do with legal and fiduciary responsibility to the patient as a healthcare provider, a concept many militant crna's can't seem to grasp.
so, overall the "softer" end points may be more important, as huge advances in monitoring and technology over the past 25 years has made our field much less demanding intraoperatively. iow, what happens in the OR is not where the distinction between the anesthetist and the anesthesiologist can necessarily be made.
happy hunting.
