Is Anesthesia Boring?

[BobtheDoc]

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Hi - 3rd year medical student here who is seriously considering anesthesia as a specialty. I still have time to make up my mind, but I'd love to hear from some of you out there regarding how the day to day practice is like.

I've only had one elective rotation through anesthesia, so everything was interesting and exciting for me. However, when the case gets going and its going to take hours, I am worried that all the things I find interesting and exciting now would quickly become passe and I'd be bored.

There was a phase in my life when I was interested in Radiology, mostly because I liked anatomy and felt pretty impressed with the depth of knowledge I saw in them whenever we'd have a radiology lecture. This was short lived, as I quickly decided that while intellectually stimulating, the daily grind would be much too boring for me. One piece of good advice I got from a radiologist caused me to think, however. He said that any specialty would be boring once you got proficient at it, as common things remain common, and that it is up to each person to continually push themselves to become better and learn more in whatever they choose to pursue.

I've heard the cliches about anesthesia - that its 99% boredom and 1% adrenaline, etc... But I want to know how satisfying working actually is. What types of practices are available? Is it possible to take mostly critical ASA 4-5 cases most days, or does it mean I'd be mostly sitting across from gallbladders or appys all day? Is the CRNA supervision model making it even worse (ie, with less patient time and more supervision), or is it better in that it leaves the more complex cases for anesthesiologists?

I had more than one person on my rotation say that anesthesia is boring to watch but fun to do... I really hope that is the case, because from outside it is so far looking like a very attractive choice right now.

What say you?

 

[powermd]

No matter what field you go into, sooner or later your day to day activities will start to feel rote. Things that were once exciting, you can do with your eyes closed while thinking about your weekend plans. What will keep your head in the game is a basic love for patient care, and working in an environment where you have some control and feel stimulated intellectually and socially. You can find that in all sorts of fields, but you may have to give something up to get what's really important.

Anesthesia training offers a wide variety of practice settings, which is one reason I chose it for my primary residency. I loved the excitement and camaraderie of the OR, the life and death decision making, and the physical nature of the job. I chose to subspecialize in pain medicine because I knew sooner or later the night call would get to me, if not the monotony of only ever working around the OR. I couldn't be happier with my choice, although I do miss OR anesthesia a bit. If I had it to do over again, I might have gone into orthopedic surgery, but there is no way I was ready to make that choice as a fourth year medical student, so I have no regrets.

You can find happiness and misery in just about any field, and it's impossible to know beforehand what will work out best for you.

To some degree specialty choice is a leap of faith, you will feel better if you accept that.

Hi - 3rd year medical student here who is seriously considering anesthesia as a specialty. I still have time to make up my mind, but I'd love to hear from some of you out there regarding how the day to day practice is like.

I've only had one elective rotation through anesthesia, so everything was interesting and exciting for me. However, when the case gets going and its going to take hours, I am worried that all the things I find interesting and exciting now would quickly become passe and I'd be bored.

There was a phase in my life when I was interested in Radiology, mostly because I liked anatomy and felt pretty impressed with the depth of knowledge I saw in them whenever we'd have a radiology lecture. This was short lived, as I quickly decided that while intellectually stimulating, the daily grind would be much too boring for me. One piece of good advice I got from a radiologist caused me to think, however. He said that any specialty would be boring once you got proficient at it, as common things remain common, and that it is up to each person to continually push themselves to become better and learn more in whatever they choose to pursue.

I've heard the cliches about anesthesia - that its 99% boredom and 1% adrenaline, etc... But I want to know how satisfying working actually is. What types of practices are available? Is it possible to take mostly critical ASA 4-5 cases most days, or does it mean I'd be mostly sitting across from gallbladders or appys all day? Is the CRNA supervision model making it even worse (ie, with less patient time and more supervision), or is it better in that it leaves the more complex cases for anesthesiologists?

I had more than one person on my rotation say that anesthesia is boring to watch but fun to do... I really hope that is the case, because from outside it is so far looking like a very attractive choice right now.

What say you?

 

[IlDestriero]

A few points
-You likely won't be sitting and doing your own cases. You'll probably be covering 2-4(+?) rooms at a time.
-You can work at a large high acuity referral canter to increase your exposure to the most challenging cases.
-With experience, what were the most challenging cases become fairly routine.
-When the most challenging cases become routine, you are a certified bad ass.😉

 

[epidural man]

Hi - 3rd year medical student here who is seriously considering anesthesia as a specialty. I still have time to make up my mind, but I'd love to hear from some of you out there regarding how the day to day practice is like.

I've only had one elective rotation through anesthesia, so everything was interesting and exciting for me. However, when the case gets going and its going to take hours, I am worried that all the things I find interesting and exciting now would quickly become passe and I'd be bored.

There was a phase in my life when I was interested in Radiology, mostly because I liked anatomy and felt pretty impressed with the depth of knowledge I saw in them whenever we'd have a radiology lecture. This was short lived, as I quickly decided that while intellectually stimulating, the daily grind would be much too boring for me. One piece of good advice I got from a radiologist caused me to think, however. He said that any specialty would be boring once you got proficient at it, as common things remain common, and that it is up to each person to continually push themselves to become better and learn more in whatever they choose to pursue.

I've heard the cliches about anesthesia - that its 99% boredom and 1% adrenaline, etc... But I want to know how satisfying working actually is. What types of practices are available? Is it possible to take mostly critical ASA 4-5 cases most days, or does it mean I'd be mostly sitting across from gallbladders or appys all day? Is the CRNA supervision model making it even worse (ie, with less patient time and more supervision), or is it better in that it leaves the more complex cases for anesthesiologists?

I had more than one person on my rotation say that anesthesia is boring to watch but fun to do... I really hope that is the case, because from outside it is so far looking like a very attractive choice right now.

What say you?

Life is boring to boring people....

Some points...

A huge part of anesthesia involves anatomy...much more than you would think. I haved learned (or try to learn) a ton of anatomy because of my regional skills (and also the pain clinic stuff).

I think almost everything else in medicine would be way more boring.

Anesthesia is not at all boring actually. It has exciting moments, and then moments I get to play craps on my iphone. It is a perfect job.

If you want to do radiology, put your sites on IR. What a perfect job that would be. They do all the pain injections I do, but with no follow up, no evaluation, no culpability.

 

[pgg]

OR anesthesia should look boring, at least when it's done well.

All fields do the same handful of things 90% of the time. At some point everything is a job. The adrenaline junkies who pick EM because you never know what'll come in next find that the same stuff comes in over and over.

But I still get a lot of enjoyment out of doing cases, even he routine ones. A simple case done well is satisfying, even if most observers just see another boring lap chole. Maybe the IM docs feel the same way about the 60 year old with HTN and DM2 who's in for a med refill, but that looks boring to me.

 

[KLPM]

OR anesthesia should look boring, at least when it's done well.

I think the OP is on to something. I found at least 2 other threads asking if anaesthesia is boring.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=79579

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=195246

 

[Dejavu]

After 37 yrs of anesthesia in one form or the other, I am rarely bored, worse the luck.

I welcome boring days.

You want boring, imagine reading chest xrays and bowel films in a dark room all day, day in and day out for forty years of a career.

That is boring. Anesthesia is not. Ever.