Pediatric Anesthesiology

[pillowhead]

I was hoping somebody could share their experiences/knowledge about pediatric anesthesiology. I just came off of a 4 week rotation in pediatric surgery and decided I like the OR and definitely like working with children for a variety of reasons, but definitely don't want to be a surgeon. I did a week of general anesthesiology and had a blast but really would prefer babies, kids, and teens. Any insights into the fellowships, competitiveness, job outlook (seems like kind of a narrow scope of practice), salary, how things compare to adult anesthesia in general? thanks--

 

[Laryngospasm]

Keep in mind that if you do a fellowship and have difficulty finding a peds only job, youll always be able to find a general job with some peds, and youll probably find that your colleagues will be glad to give all the peds cases to the guy with a peds fellowship. And I dont think the fellowships are that competitive at this time. Someone from my residency in the midwest went to stanford this year.

 

[Hockeyguy]

I am trying to match into anesthesia this year and really like peds anesth too. From the fellows I have worked, with at Children's in Denver all got the fellowship with no problem. They said it was because the job market is good right now so people aren't as interested in fellowship training - I don't know for sure if thats true but thats what they say. I know too if you work for the TCH in Denver as a junior faculty your pay is in the high 200's. There is also a private prac group that covers there as well, they make more but no-one told how much. As far as jobs most already have one lined up or several offers. As far as it being narrow I think the scope is a actually a little wider than adults and there is plenty of work to go around. Some afteernoons we were sedating in ICU, other times sedating for MRIs, etc so there was a ton of things we did outside the OR. Also (this ought to fire some-one up) there are no CNRAs at Childrens in Denver and from what I have heard at other CHildrens hospitals its the same. Could be viewed as a +/-, I could care less either way. Hope that helped - I really had a good month working there, more so than working on adults.

 

[UTSouthwestern]

I know that CMC in Dallas is almost desparate for pediatric anesthesiologists as they have expanding requirements. 400+ K salary, but a lot of call responsibilities. It's fun working with kids, but I had a hard time finding groups that had balanced practices with both adults and kids until I joined my current group.

 

[pillowhead]

As far as it being narrow I think the scope is a actually a little wider than adults and there is plenty of work to go around. Some afteernoons we were sedating in ICU, other times sedating for MRIs, etc so there was a ton of things we did outside the OR. Also (this ought to fire some-one up) there are no CNRAs at Childrens in Denver and from what I have heard at other CHildrens hospitals its the same. Could be viewed as a +/-, I could care less either way. Hope that helped - I really had a good month working there, more so than working on adults.

Ah, I guess I should have been clearer--I didn't mean that the work scope of peds anesthesiologists was narrow, but just that there aren't many pediatric hospitals relative to general hospitals and so thought that the job market might be "narrower" in that sense. Thanks for all the help though!!