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For all of you attendings and residents out there, why did you choose anesthesia? Your response will be good fodder for a q I'm sure us MS4's will be asked on the interview trail every time.
Why anesthesiology?
- Thread starter ultm8frisbee
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ultm8frisbee said:
Well, I think we shouldn't use other people's reasons as our own fodder for such an interview question. We should really introspect and give our own sincere answers, because all of us have our own unique reasons, i'm sure.
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So because the hours are good and the pay is better than average? (KIDDING)
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I'll bite. This is something I wrote a year ago for a magazine about anesthesiology:
Pros:
Anesthesiology is a very procedure oriented specialty. You do a variety of procedures and you do a lot of them and you become the person that can be depended upon to perform under pressure. I also enjoy the fact that you see immediate results with your decisions. You routinely make life-saving
decisions, give powerful medications, monitor and decipher the vital signs,
and treat the pathologies of each of your patients. At the end of a day, you
know you have made a difference and you can leave your work at the
hospital.
Lifestyle has never been an issue in anesthesiology: In practice you can
work hard or tailor your schedule to fit a particular lifestyle. You do not
have to round on patients unless you become involved in critical care, and
you do not have to fund and maintain a clinic unless you have an office based
pain management clinic.
Reimbursement remains high and you can make more if you want to work more.
Residency work hours rarely even approach the 80 hour work week so you have time to raise a family, moonlight, etc.
Anesthesiology is one of the few fields of medicine that allows you to see pathology from every field in adult and pediatric medicine.
There is a great deal of flexibility in terms of what type of anesthesia you could practice but at the same time you have choices for fellowship training to accentuate a particular skill set you may want to possess and present.
Your skills are mobile and transferrable.
You practice both practical and applied critical care EVERY day.
Did I mention procedures?
I chose anesthesiology because it allows me to have options. I can accept
the challenge and personal rewards of critical care but also enjoy a healthy
income and lifestyle that other fields of anesthesiology provide.
Availability of jobs. That may change in the future but it certainly hasn't
now. Even in heavily saturated cities like San Franscisco, Los Angeles,
Dallas, New York, etc., there are still plenty of positions available.
Academic anesthesiology provides you with good opportunities for clinical or
basic science research at the cost of less compensation compared to private
practice anesthesiology but is still significantly higher than most of your
academic colleagues in other disciplines.
Cons:
At times, you may have to deal with some very rigid personalities on the
other side of the drape - Paralysis and giving blood is not the cureall for
every situation.
Occasionally, you may get stuck doing very long cases (12 hours plus).
Respect from other fields used to be an issue and may continue to be in some
geographic areas, but the higher quality and quantity of residents choosing
anesthesiology over the past few years has yielded stronger physicians that
are more actively involved in total perioperative care. That has led to a
greater amount of respect shown by physicians of other disciplines.
Conclusion:
Do not choose anesthesiology if you faint at the sight of blood or if your
only goal is to achieve a comfortable sense of financial security. As with
any field of medicine, your interest will dictate the level of competency you
achieve. Do you want to be a physician who is borderline functional and
financially secure but unhappy or the physician who feels challenged and
content and excels in a field but may or may not be as well compensated as he or she would like? If you are unsure of your interest, do a rotation at an
institution that will give you the opportunity to experience every aspect of
the life of an anesthesiologist.
Pros:
Anesthesiology is a very procedure oriented specialty. You do a variety of procedures and you do a lot of them and you become the person that can be depended upon to perform under pressure. I also enjoy the fact that you see immediate results with your decisions. You routinely make life-saving
decisions, give powerful medications, monitor and decipher the vital signs,
and treat the pathologies of each of your patients. At the end of a day, you
know you have made a difference and you can leave your work at the
hospital.
Lifestyle has never been an issue in anesthesiology: In practice you can
work hard or tailor your schedule to fit a particular lifestyle. You do not
have to round on patients unless you become involved in critical care, and
you do not have to fund and maintain a clinic unless you have an office based
pain management clinic.
Reimbursement remains high and you can make more if you want to work more.
Residency work hours rarely even approach the 80 hour work week so you have time to raise a family, moonlight, etc.
Anesthesiology is one of the few fields of medicine that allows you to see pathology from every field in adult and pediatric medicine.
There is a great deal of flexibility in terms of what type of anesthesia you could practice but at the same time you have choices for fellowship training to accentuate a particular skill set you may want to possess and present.
Your skills are mobile and transferrable.
You practice both practical and applied critical care EVERY day.
Did I mention procedures?
I chose anesthesiology because it allows me to have options. I can accept
the challenge and personal rewards of critical care but also enjoy a healthy
income and lifestyle that other fields of anesthesiology provide.
Availability of jobs. That may change in the future but it certainly hasn't
now. Even in heavily saturated cities like San Franscisco, Los Angeles,
Dallas, New York, etc., there are still plenty of positions available.
Academic anesthesiology provides you with good opportunities for clinical or
basic science research at the cost of less compensation compared to private
practice anesthesiology but is still significantly higher than most of your
academic colleagues in other disciplines.
Cons:
At times, you may have to deal with some very rigid personalities on the
other side of the drape - Paralysis and giving blood is not the cureall for
every situation.
Occasionally, you may get stuck doing very long cases (12 hours plus).
Respect from other fields used to be an issue and may continue to be in some
geographic areas, but the higher quality and quantity of residents choosing
anesthesiology over the past few years has yielded stronger physicians that
are more actively involved in total perioperative care. That has led to a
greater amount of respect shown by physicians of other disciplines.
Conclusion:
Do not choose anesthesiology if you faint at the sight of blood or if your
only goal is to achieve a comfortable sense of financial security. As with
any field of medicine, your interest will dictate the level of competency you
achieve. Do you want to be a physician who is borderline functional and
financially secure but unhappy or the physician who feels challenged and
content and excels in a field but may or may not be as well compensated as he or she would like? If you are unsure of your interest, do a rotation at an
institution that will give you the opportunity to experience every aspect of
the life of an anesthesiologist.
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I chose Anesthesiology by default. Couldn't make up my mind. But don't say that in your interview.
A few of my reasons:
-- I love cardiopulmonary pharmacology and physiology
-- I enjoy working as part of a team in the OR
-- I enjoy being the calming/reassuring doctor that the patient meets pre-op at one of the most nervous and scared times of their lives
-- I hate rounds
-- I hate fixing problems over the course of months and years
-- I hope to one day be the doc that is calm and cool (or at least appears to be) in the face of crashing patients and gives them the best care possible
-- Performing surgery bores me, but peeking over the curtain to watch every now and then is interesting and I enjoy taking care of patients with surgical problems
-- Only having 1 patient at a time. It's nice not to have a list of 10-20 (or more) patients you are responsible for and constantly keeping notes of who you need to do what for that day.
-- I love cardiopulmonary pharmacology and physiology
-- I enjoy working as part of a team in the OR
-- I enjoy being the calming/reassuring doctor that the patient meets pre-op at one of the most nervous and scared times of their lives
-- I hate rounds
-- I hate fixing problems over the course of months and years
-- I hope to one day be the doc that is calm and cool (or at least appears to be) in the face of crashing patients and gives them the best care possible
-- Performing surgery bores me, but peeking over the curtain to watch every now and then is interesting and I enjoy taking care of patients with surgical problems
-- Only having 1 patient at a time. It's nice not to have a list of 10-20 (or more) patients you are responsible for and constantly keeping notes of who you need to do what for that day.
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Old thread, but I would like to read this article! Where might I find it UTSouthwestern?
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someone said there would be free punch and pie.
LIES!
LIES!
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That was a long time ago. I posted it last year, but I wrote it a year before that.
In any event, that is the bulk of the article.
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My residency positions available to me were, IM, Surgery, EM and Anesth. Need I say more. Oh, I forgot, Rad also.
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You trained on a planet where OB/GYN, FM, path, pediatrics, psych, neuro, PM&R, and derm didn't exist?
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Any any event, I'm glad I stumbled across your post. I'm only MSII but I have been researching anesthesiology for some time now. I was born in Arizona, studying at AZCOM in Arizona, and hope to go to the new Mayo gas residency down the road in a couple years...
Procedures, lifestyle, research opportunities.
Don't say money. Don't say because you look good in a scrub cap, or because you like to be in charge of la musica.
But really, it is all about procedures and cardiopulmonary.
Don't say money. Don't say because you look good in a scrub cap, or because you like to be in charge of la musica.
But really, it is all about procedures and cardiopulmonary.
