What makes anesthesia such a "laid back" specialty, even in emergencys, can in part be attributed to the training. You are taught to recognise the fact you have the ability to kill a patient accidentally, with even small errors. Therefore to avoid this you have to know what the hell you are doing i.e. your limitations, and also recognise the problems you can run into, PRIOR to planning your anaesthetic. If you identify your problems then you know how to avoid some of them. Some of them you can do nothing about but being aware of their possibility, being prepared for them if they arise and knowing when and how they occur, lets you react quickly but also with a cool head. Also as every anesthesiologist knows a patient with a patent airway ventilating with 100% oxygen and a blood pressure is alive. In every emergency this is the priority, and if you watch that is what the anesthesiologist does first (in that order) regardless of what is going on.
As you progress your experience helps also, because you will only ever really know when is the best time to extubate patients when you have had a laryngospasm in an isolated site. Those are the best remebered lessons.
