I wanna be sedated (or actually, the sedator)

[roygbasch]

Anyone out there doing anesthesia after switching from another specialty (other that surgery, I know that happens alot) or better yet, after finishing another specialty and then starting? If so, how is it going for you?

I'm hating life as a clinical doc and am looking into the RAP specialties. I like them each for different reasons and am trying to make some decisions. I have an engineering background, and I recall a posting about engineer types ending up frequently in anesthesia, any truth to that? From reading this forum it sounds like the patient contact is considered ideal--not too much or too little. How about the pain management rotations? Is that mostly misery? How much critical care typically? I appreciate any comments---

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[WVmed]

Anyone out there doing anesthesia after switching from another specialty (other that surgery, I know that happens alot) or better yet, after finishing another specialty and then starting? If so, how is it going for you?

I'm hating life as a clinical doc and am looking into the RAP specialties. I like them each for different reasons and am trying to make some decisions. I have an engineering background, and I recall a posting about engineer types ending up frequently in anesthesia, any truth to that? From reading this forum it sounds like the patient contact is considered ideal--not too much or too little. How about the pain management rotations? Is that mostly misery? How much critical care typically? I appreciate any comments---

I am also from engineering, and it seems my friends who made the switch from engineering to medicine have chosen either radiology, or anesthesiology.
I have considered anesthesia quite a bit, but am also weighing the possibility of surg. I know this doesn't answer your question completely, but it just goes to say yes engineers favor gas and rad.

 

[Lonestar]

I am just an intern about to be a CA1. But from what I know, most of the residents welcome their pain rotations. Its a different pace and they really look forward to the office hours. It seems that more and more anesthesia residencies are gravitating towards more ICU months during residency. At our place, we do a total of 6 months (4 intern, 1 CA1, and 1 CA2). After residency, most private practice docs do not do any ICU. As far as hours go, most residents work about 60 hours per week after their intern year.

We have 3 medicine docs that decided to switch careers in our residency. They all seem to be happy about their decision. Plenty of surgeons also including one guy who almost finished his ENT residency. Hope this helps.

 

[end_tidal]

Yeah, its pretty common for other specialties other than surgery to come into anesthesia. At the place I'm doing anesthesia at, we have people from surgery, IM, OB-Gyn, FP, and ENT. In fact, when I interviewed there, some of the residents were asking me "what stage of training are you in?" I just kinda looked at them puzzled and they were like, "are you a surgery resident, an IM doc out in practice or what?"

So yeah, we take all different kinds of people into our field.

Hope that helps! Definately try out gas. It beats the pants off of everything else you're considering in my "unbiased" opinion!

 

[roygbasch]

Thanks for the replies. Very encouraging. Six months of ICU? I guess my previous rotations would count for part of that. Do you get to pick medical or surgical? Probably some of both. Anesthesia folks seem pretty happy in the place where I practice too.

 

[maximuum]

I am curious why the ENT guys switched fields. I was considering that field, and it seems to me to be the best surgical subspecialty. I am actually probably going to choose anesthesiology over ENT because of mobility, no overhead, and generally less headaches, but I am curious why some of those that switched out of ENT did. I am also an engineering type, and I find anesthesiology to be very much like a continuous experiment being run on the human body. You get to monitor a variety of different parameters continuously, and get immediate feedback from any change you might make. Pretty freaking cool.

 

[HomerSimpson]

9 out of 15 of the guys in my residency class switched from other fields to do anesthesia. They were IM, FP, Peds, Urology and of course GS. I don't think any of them regret it now, except for one.

Let me put it to you this way. Not many people switch out of anesthesia to another specialty.

 

[roygbasch]

9 out of 15 of the guys in my residency class switched from other fields to do anesthesia. They were IM, FP, Peds, Urology and of course GS. I don't think any of them regret it now, except for one.

Let me put it to you this way. Not many people switch out of anesthesia to another specialty.

That's really the most telling indicator of the desirability of anesthesia, rads, path, and maybe a couple others specialties. No one ever switches FROM them, the switch is always to one of these prime gigs from patient care. If any of you have read Polk's hilarious and completely truthful book "Medical Student Survival Guide", I'm saying it now, and he told me I would---"That rat bastard was right." (It's under the section titled "The Fine Art of Bailing Out" or something close to that). That dude knew what he was talking about. Could have saved some time if I'd listened better the first time rather than blowing him off as a nutty cynic.

 

[end_tidal]

I am curious why the ENT guys switched fields. I was considering that field, and it seems to me to be the best surgical subspecialty. I am actually probably going to choose anesthesiology over ENT because of mobility, no overhead, and generally less headaches, but I am curious why some of those that switched out of ENT did. I am also an engineering type, and I find anesthesiology to be very much like a continuous experiment being run on the human body. You get to monitor a variety of different parameters continuously, and get immediate feedback from any change you might make. Pretty freaking cool.

Former ENT folks give the same reasons you've mentioned above but also bear in mind that in many ways ENT is very similar to anesthesia in regards to airway issues.