Looking at career field

[ariggsd]

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I'm a 17 year old high school student, who is looking at anesthesiology as my career field of choice. As of now I'm almost clueless when it comes to the requirements both to get into medical school and the requirements to get into this field. Any help/advice that you could offer on these topics would be greatly appreciated, also I have a few questions about anesthesiology. What would I be specifically doing on a daily basis? Is it the same thing everyday? Would I only be involved in surgery? What are the work hours/days like? Is there a limit to how much I would be able to work? Would I be able to choose my patients?

Any informations helping with theses questions or any other helpful advice you might want to offer would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for any help in advance.

 

[RT2MD]

I'm a 17 year old high school student, who is looking at anesthesiology as my career field of choice. As of now I'm almost clueless when it comes to the requirements both to get into medical school and the requirements to get into this field. Any help/advice that you could offer on these topics would be greatly appreciated, also I have a few questions about anesthesiology. What would I be specifically doing on a daily basis? Is it the same thing everyday? Would I only be involved in surgery? What are the work hours/days like? Is there a limit to how much I would be able to work? Would I be able to choose my patients?

Any informations helping with theses questions or any other helpful advice you might want to offer would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for any help in advance.

Just a heads up, you might use the search function first. There are a lot of threads that address your questions. After you do some research, this is a great place to ask more in depth questions, though.

Good luck, let us know any additional questions.

 

[WholeLottaGame7]

I'm a 17 year old high school student, who is looking at anesthesiology as my career field of choice. As of now I'm almost clueless when it comes to the requirements both to get into medical school and the requirements to get into this field. Any help/advice that you could offer on these topics would be greatly appreciated, also I have a few questions about anesthesiology. What would I be specifically doing on a daily basis? Is it the same thing everyday? Would I only be involved in surgery? What are the work hours/days like? Is there a limit to how much I would be able to work? Would I be able to choose my patients?

Any informations helping with theses questions or any other helpful advice you might want to offer would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for any help in advance.

Don't take this the wrong way, but you probably don't know if anesthesiology is your career choice or not if you're not at least vaguely familiar with the answers to those questions.

You'll find this advice many places, but take it one step at a time. Concentrate on getting in to a good, cost-effective college. Take some science courses. While you're there, do some volunteering/shadowing to see if you might like medicine. Then apply to medical school. When/if you get in, use your 3rd/4th year to try out different fields. The key point here is you go to medical school to become a physician, then you might choose to specialize in anesthesiology. You don't go to medical school to become an anesthesiologist.

If you still like anesthesiology at the end of medical school, congrats! You will have chosen an awesome field! And by the time you get there, you will know the answer to all of your questions in detail 🙂

 

[lord_jeebus]

You don't go to medical school to become an anesthesiologist.

I did! I don't see the problem with knowing what you want to do, and using medical school as the pathway to get there (especially since its the only pathway to get there).

 

[DrMunkey]

I did! I don't see the problem with knowing what you want to do, and using medical school as the pathway to get there (especially since its the only pathway to get there).

I did also, but they're right... This guy should still have SOME clue of what he is getting into before declaring it as a likely career possibility.

 

[RT2MD]

Don't take this the wrong way, but you probably don't know if anesthesiology is your career choice or not if you're not at least vaguely familiar with the answers to those questions.

You'll find this advice many places, but take it one step at a time. Concentrate on getting in to a good, cost-effective college. Take some science courses. While you're there, do some volunteering/shadowing to see if you might like medicine. Then apply to medical school. When/if you get in, use your 3rd/4th year to try out different fields. The key point here is you go to medical school to become a physician, then you might choose to specialize in anesthesiology. You don't go to medical school to become an anesthesiologist.

If you still like anesthesiology at the end of medical school, congrats! You will have chosen an awesome field! And by the time you get there, you will know the answer to all of your questions in detail 🙂

Much better worded advice than what I offered... I'd like to think that I agree with the above 2 posters as well, but I have a LONG way to go until I'm making residency decisions...

 

[ariggsd]

Ok. Clearly I was misunderstood. I meant that all my information is from google, a few teachers, and one or two doctors in other fields. I asked these questions (that are apparently beneath all of you to give answers to) because I wanted them answered by actually anesthesiologists, medical students, and residents in order to solidify actual facts, and not a bunch of internet guess work.

 

[WholeLottaGame7]

Ok. Clearly I was misunderstood. I meant that all my information is from google, a few teachers, and one or two doctors in other fields. I asked these questions (that are apparently beneath all of you to give answers to) because I wanted them answered by actually anesthesiologists, medical students, and residents in order to solidify actual facts, and not a bunch of internet guess work.

Any informations helping with theses questions or any other helpful advice you might want to offer would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for any help in advance.

You asked for help, you received it. Maybe you were joking about being appreciative, I don't know.

As for what anesthesiologists do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anesthesiologist

I doubt any of us are going to want to take the time to type out what a nice overview accomplishes in one place.

But to answer your questions in short: you can do a wide range of procedures in a wide range of settings, though the majority of people will work primarily in the OR. Like all jobs, hours are dependent on whether you are working for yourself or someone else. Very few fields of medicine allow you to "choose" your patients unless you're doing concierge medicine, though I suppose you can kind of "choose" them based on what field you want to go into.

To LJ: I think a select few have their minds set on what they want to do when they enter medical school. I knew I liked anesthesia based on my previous experiences, but I also hadn't had enough exposure to medicine/surgery/peds to know if I might be interested in those fields more.

I think most people would benefit from keeping an open mind when it comes to choosing specialties, particularly since there are no guarantees when it comes to the match process. If you're dead set on doing anesthesiology but then you rip off 190s on your boards, you've wasted 4 years and a boatload of money.

And just from a professional standpoint, I think it's important to think of ourselves as physicians who specialize in anesthesia versus anesthesiologists, lest we cheapen our educational background. It's a thin line between that and being called MDAs...

 

[Arch Guillotti]

Ok. Clearly I was misunderstood. I meant that all my information is from google, a few teachers, and one or two doctors in other fields. I asked these questions (that are apparently beneath all of you to give answers to) because I wanted them answered by actually anesthesiologists, medical students, and residents in order to solidify actual facts, and not a bunch of internet guess work.

It isn't beneath any of us to answer any questions, but this is not really the appropriate venue to answer questions from a high school kid. This is a forum primarily for medical students, residents/fellows, and attending physicians. Try perusing the forum as far back as you can and you will get tons of good info.

Closing.