Patient-Doctor interaction

[bcmak]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Do anesthesiologists get a lot of patient interaction? I kind of like the patient-doctor relationship aspect of medicine but I'm also interested in anesthesiology so i wanted to know how that was.
What about patient-doctor interaction in the anes sub-specialties?

 

[TriagePreMed]

Depends how much you are looking for, but anesthesia doesn't typically work long term with patients, so mostly meet before surgery. Some sub specialties like pain have a lot of patient contact.

 

[Bertelman]

I probably spend an hour or so per day face time with patients, because I work with CRNAs. If you want more, I would consider Pain.

 

[pgg]

Do anesthesiologists get a lot of patient interaction?

Plenty. I talk with patients for a few minutes during a very stressful and scary time in their lives, reassure them, get them off to sleep, wake them up later with a few words, and typically never speak to them again. It's perfect.

Sometimes there is pain service work or postop followups to do with inpatients. Short rewarding encounters. Close to perfect.

For regional cases, especially c-sections, there's more interaction during the case, but it ends and then they're gone. Edging a little further away from perfect, but still pretty awesome.

Here's what I never do - see a patient in clinic, make an incremental change to a BP medicine, and see him 3-6 months later for followup to discuss why he didn't fill the new prescription. This state of non-affairs is gloriously perfect.


Short and meaningful patient interactions (that end, soon) is one of the greatest things about anesthesia. For people who like the idea of establishing long term relationships with patients, maybe being the classic small town doc that delivers a kid and 25 years later delivers that kid's kid ... anesthesia isn't a great fit. There's some potential with a chronic pain practice, but that's not for me. It might be for you.

 

[bcmak]

Plenty. I talk with patients for a few minutes during a very stressful and scary time in their lives, reassure them, get them off to sleep, wake them up later with a few words, and typically never speak to them again. It's perfect.

Sometimes there is pain service work or postop followups to do with inpatients. Short rewarding encounters. Close to perfect.

For regional cases, especially c-sections, there's more interaction during the case, but it ends and then they're gone. Edging a little further away from perfect, but still pretty awesome.

Here's what I never do - see a patient in clinic, make an incremental change to a BP medicine, and see him 3-6 months later for followup to discuss why he didn't fill the new prescription. This state of non-affairs is gloriously perfect.


Short and meaningful patient interactions (that end, soon) is one of the greatest things about anesthesia. For people who like the idea of establishing long term relationships with patients, maybe being the classic small town doc that delivers a kid and 25 years later delivers that kid's kid ... anesthesia isn't a great fit. There's some potential with a chronic pain practice, but that's not for me. It might be for you.

Thank you so much for breaking it all down 🙂 I really like the fact that the interaction is really meaningful. And you're right about calming a patient down. I find that to be really rewarding hahha

 

[Gern Blansten]

Plenty. I talk with patients for a few minutes during a very stressful and scary time in their lives, reassure them, get them off to sleep, wake them up later with a few words, and typically never speak to them again. It's perfect.

Sometimes there is pain service work or postop followups to do with inpatients. Short rewarding encounters. Close to perfect.

For regional cases, especially c-sections, there's more interaction during the case, but it ends and then they're gone. Edging a little further away from perfect, but still pretty awesome.

Here's what I never do - see a patient in clinic, make an incremental change to a BP medicine, and see him 3-6 months later for followup to discuss why he didn't fill the new prescription. This state of non-affairs is gloriously perfect.


Short and meaningful patient interactions (that end, soon) is one of the greatest things about anesthesia. For people who like the idea of establishing long term relationships with patients, maybe being the classic small town doc that delivers a kid and 25 years later delivers that kid's kid ... anesthesia isn't a great fit. There's some potential with a chronic pain practice, but that's not for me. It might be for you.

Good summary. The truth is that few specialties now have much face time with their patients. Family med might see a patient for 5 minutes before they are whisked out the door to see another. Medicine is not what it used to be in any specialty.
But as pgg said so eloquently, our face time may be brief, but it is highly important. If you can exude confidence to the patient, it will go a lot further than 2 mg of midazolam as an anxiolytic.

 

[imfrankie]

I think it also depends on the operative environment in which you work. I get a lot of quality time with each patient. I do my own cases so typically call them the night before, meet them, spend time with them going off to sleep, wake them up, take them to recovery, chit-chat before discharge from PACU. It's a perfect amount for me, and they seem to like it also, by in large. When people come back and ask for you, or thank you for a great job, it feels pretty darn good.

 

[KLPM]

Do anesthesiologists get a lot of patient interaction? I kind of like the patient-doctor relationship aspect of medicine but I'm also interested in anesthesiology so i wanted to know how that was.
What about patient-doctor interaction in the anes sub-specialties?

I think it largely depends on what kind of interactions you want. The interactions had be different if you did anaesthesia, pain medicine or something else as people have illustrated.

If you really want plenty of doctor-patient interactions then probably consider things like addiction, rehab or maybe occupational health? I don't know what the options are in the states to be honest. If you generally find such interactions pointless and annoying such as myself then I had consider pathology, radiology or dermatology.

 

[punkedoutriffs]

I talk with patients for a few minutes during a very stressful and scary time in their lives, reassure them, get them off to sleep, wake them up later with a few words, and typically never speak to them again.

Sounds like Batman/other superhero that appears/disappears whimsically around a time of distress.