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- Apr 3, 2003
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OK, so just a quick question for the RESIDENTS or ATTENDINGS (not students please), only people who get up every morning to be an anesthesiologist:
If in medicine, it's the art and the chess game of diagnosis that keeps things interesting, what keeps you going in anesthesia? What's still cool when all the procedures are routine?
Please note that I'm not that enamored with medicine. I am excited about anesthesiology, but I have reservations about what happens when you have done all of the procedures a thousand times, and you are sitting in an OR charting vitals for the 10, 000th time.
Now, medicine has plenty of BS to burn you out, but the people who love it have those great diagnoses as the light at the end of the tunnel, the mental challenge that makes all the BS worthwhile. For the family practice doc it's caring for a whole family and watching them grow up. For the surgeon it's the technically difficult procedure. You get the idea, each specialty has its own ideal rewarding situation.
What is the equivalent in anesthesiology? The procedures are great, but become more routine (as is the nature of procedures). The patient interaction is short but sweet, and I can see that being a plus, but is that what keeps the greatest anesthesiologists going?
I'm not trying to be inflamatory, I've just been wondering about burnout.
Unfortunately, when I ask a lot of people what they like about anesthesiology, they cite money, lifestyle, lack of paperwork/BS and that kind of stuff. All significant, but none of it is about the actual work IS and all of it about what IS NOT.
The best people in their fields love what they do. What makes you LOVE it? What makes you want to do it every day for the rest of your life?
Please do NOT respond about what's bad about other specialties. That's a smoke screen. Do not tell me how anesthesiology has minimal scut and good hours, etc. I know that is true, but that's not the issue. Also, please do not respond if you are not an anesthesiologist.
I just want to know what makes an anesthesiologist wake up in the morning and say, "Damn I love my job!"
What makes the great anesthesiologist LOVE anesthesia?
Thanks,
wundabread
If in medicine, it's the art and the chess game of diagnosis that keeps things interesting, what keeps you going in anesthesia? What's still cool when all the procedures are routine?
Please note that I'm not that enamored with medicine. I am excited about anesthesiology, but I have reservations about what happens when you have done all of the procedures a thousand times, and you are sitting in an OR charting vitals for the 10, 000th time.
Now, medicine has plenty of BS to burn you out, but the people who love it have those great diagnoses as the light at the end of the tunnel, the mental challenge that makes all the BS worthwhile. For the family practice doc it's caring for a whole family and watching them grow up. For the surgeon it's the technically difficult procedure. You get the idea, each specialty has its own ideal rewarding situation.
What is the equivalent in anesthesiology? The procedures are great, but become more routine (as is the nature of procedures). The patient interaction is short but sweet, and I can see that being a plus, but is that what keeps the greatest anesthesiologists going?
I'm not trying to be inflamatory, I've just been wondering about burnout.
Unfortunately, when I ask a lot of people what they like about anesthesiology, they cite money, lifestyle, lack of paperwork/BS and that kind of stuff. All significant, but none of it is about the actual work IS and all of it about what IS NOT.
The best people in their fields love what they do. What makes you LOVE it? What makes you want to do it every day for the rest of your life?
Please do NOT respond about what's bad about other specialties. That's a smoke screen. Do not tell me how anesthesiology has minimal scut and good hours, etc. I know that is true, but that's not the issue. Also, please do not respond if you are not an anesthesiologist.
I just want to know what makes an anesthesiologist wake up in the morning and say, "Damn I love my job!"
What makes the great anesthesiologist LOVE anesthesia?
Thanks,
wundabread