Residency Help

[z17]

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Hi-
I'm very interested in applying for anesthesia, but unofrtunately i have a hearing problem that may preclude me from completing a residency in anesthesia. Basically, i sustained some hearing damage and now have terrible sensitivity to very loud noise, as a result i wouldn't be able to provide sedation for noisy procedures like MRI or lithotripsy. I can do ok with the drills in ortho and neuro as long as i wear earplugs. Does anyone know if this would prevent me from completing an anesthesia residency? Would programs excuse me from MRI and lithotripsy, as long as I could do the rest of it?

Any advice would be really helpful.

Thanks!

 

[Planktonmd]

Hi-
I'm very interested in applying for anesthesia, but unofrtunately i have a hearing problem that may preclude me from completing a residency in anesthesia. Basically, i sustained some hearing damage and now have terrible sensitivity to very loud noise, as a result i wouldn't be able to provide sedation for noisy procedures like MRI or lithotripsy. I can do ok with the drills in ortho and neuro as long as i wear earplugs. Does anyone know if this would prevent me from completing an anesthesia residency? Would programs excuse me from MRI and lithotripsy, as long as I could do the rest of it?

Any advice would be really helpful.

Thanks!

I don't think you will have a problem doing an anesthesia residency.
Can't you wear ear protection muffs for these noisy procedures?

 

[Jeff05]

our MRI suite has a huge box of earplugs. i use them.
you can use the same for lithotrips.

as long as you can tolerate anesthesia machine alarms, you should be just fine.

 

[z17]

Thank you both for your replies. I should have mentioned that I have a really hard time tolerating those procedures even with hearing protection. It would probably be best if I could avoid them altogether. I hope that wouldn't be a problem for completing the requirements of a program.

sorry for not being totally clear

Thanks again!

 

[Pilot Doc]

It would probably be best if I could avoid them altogether.

There's no board or RRC requirement to do those procedures. (Lots of people can't go into an MRI room b/c of implants anyway.) I'd be very surprised if a program director cared either.

That said, ahve you tried active noise reducing headsets.
like this or this

 

[Bougie]

Please do not let that issue stop you from going into anesthesia. You will be fine in residency (you will rarely do MRIs or lithotripsy) if you did OK during your med school rotations. I suggest shadowing an anesthesia resident for a few days and go into an ortho room (hammering, nailing, drilling, shouting, cussing) to see if you can still hear alarms, phone, surgeons speaking to you with earplugs on. That's the only major problem that you may encounter, other than the loud Metallica that's usually booming in the ortho ORs at our program. If you are hard working, motivated, meticulous, and congenial, you will do better than most of the residents in your program anyway.

Good luck.

 

[loveumms]

The only advice I can give you is to make sure before persuing the field that you are able to detect the small changed in the pulse oximeter. We had a candidate want to do anesthesia that had a hearing impariment and he was unable to detect the difference between 100 and 90 so he was not able to go through with anesthesia. You would be surprised at how important it truly is to be able to detect the difference.

If it is just loud noise that you can't tolerate then you will more than likely be fine. You could put on ear muffs/plugs when they are using the loud drills.

Best of luck!

 

[ozzie20]

.

 

[2ndyear]

I sit outside the scanner (with vitals on display inside, including ETCO2). Sometimes I even drink coffee.

 

[z17]

Thank you everyone for your replies. I'm really glad to know I can still do anesthesia. No primary care for me! Yeah!

 

[dhb]

will you tolerate surgeons?