Question about Anesthesia observerships, looking for SDN User Cognitus

[WhiteHatDoc]

Hi folks,

I have a quick question for those of you who have done anesthesia observerships. After searching on the forums, I came across user Cognitus so I am definitely interested in reaching out to you, if you do not mind private messaging me. Even if you are not Cognitus but have experience with anesthesia observerships.

I completed 2 years of general surgery in 2012-2014, followed by Preventive Medicine residency in 2016-2018. My steps are in upper 220s, I have both research training, poster presentations and several research publications. I have been in primary care for several years now but am starting to miss working with my hands and miss working with patients during the peri-operative period.

I have made arrangements to work part-time so I can explore anesthesia and hopefully apply this fall or next year. I do realize advanced positions are limited so I am willing to repeat my internship year in general surgery.

I would love to talk one on one with anyone who has gone down a similar path of choosing Anesthesiology and doing obeserverships after completing or leaving another residency. I never did any rotations in Anesthesia.

My questions for observerships are:
1. Is this just like a Sub-I?
2. How did you start building a fund of knowledge
3. Any particular observerships you would recommend or stay away from?

Please feel free to PM me directly, especially if you are Cognitus. Thank you for your time!

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[IMGASMD]

Didn’t know there is a preventive medicine residency, and you can actually board in it.....

If you have any affiliation with any of the local hospital, maybe you can just ask their anesthesia department for shadowing experience. Our department is very friendly, we’ve had high school students, college students, medical students. You probably won’t get much hands on stuff.

Your leg up is that you should know primary care well, hopefully some preop work up. Your down fall maybe is that you actually went through two different specialities already. Not sure how that will be viewed from a program point of view. Your best chance may have been two years ago when you decided not to continue with GS.

That out of the way, if you’re welling to put in another 3-4 years. Find your med school, talk to your local programs, talk to your old GS program (if you left in good terms).

Good luck.

 

[WhiteHatDoc]

Didn’t know there is a preventive medicine residency, and you can actually board in it.....

If you have any affiliation with any of the local hospital, maybe you can just ask their anesthesia department for shadowing experience. Our department is very friendly, we’ve had high school students, college students, medical students. You probably won’t get much hands on stuff.

Your leg up is that you should know primary care well, hopefully some preop work up. Your down fall maybe is that you actually went through two different specialities already. Not sure how that will be viewed from a program point of view. Your best chance may have been two years ago when you decided not to continue with GS.

That out of the way, if you’re welling to put in another 3-4 years. Find your med school, talk to your local programs, talk to your old GS program (if you left in good terms).

Good luck.

Thank you for the solid advice. I agree my application may seem to make me appear as indecisive, so I'll have to work hard on finding an observership and becoming 100% convinced this is the right field, which will allow me to convince interviewers in the future.

I'll reach out to local programs and the university hospital in the city I live in. Thank you!

 

[Mman]

Please feel free to PM me directly, especially if you are Cognitus. Thank you for your time!

I find no SDN user by that name when I attempt to tag them

 

[morri493]

I did this approach out of primary care. I shadowed at my local hospital once a week for about a year before applying. I used this time to get comfortable in the OR, and get some exposure to the common medications being used. I tried reading M&M during this time, but ultimately found it a bit too hard to teach myself anesthesia from scratch. I found some lectures on youtube, and podcasts (ACCRAC is fantastic) that seemed to help more.
In regards to your questions:
1. My observership was not treated like a Sub-I; generally people are cognizant of the fact that you dont know anything about anesthesia. Depending on the insitution, many places cannot allow observers to touch patients, so it may be a very hands off experience. I saw it as a good networking opportunity. Everyone you meet may have connections to programs you may be interested in, and may be able to write you a LoR if you spend enough time with them.
2. lecture format (videos and podcasts) worked better for me than just starting on page one of M&M and going thru.
3. Unfortunately I dont have any information re: this topic, but I would try and find programs that seem to like/take more non-traditional students, as they may look more favorably on an applicant with a wider breadth of experience.

Hope this helps! feel free to PM me with any other questions.

 

[shepardsun]

I have a different perspective but happy to share whatever information I can. I knew going into a pediatrics residency that I also wanted to train in anesthesia. I applied for the second residency while completing the first. While I didn't do observerships, by the time I applied to my anesthesia residency I also had not done any formal anesthesia rotations. PM me if you have any questions about the second go around residency application process.