Anesthesiologist - Pain Free Sleep

Anesthesiologist: manages procedures for making a patient insensible to pain and emotional stress during surgical, obstetric, and certain medical procedures.

The anesthesiologist assesses the risk of the patient's condition prior to, during and after surgery. They provide medical management and consultation in pain management and critical care medicine.

Quick Facts

Competitiveness: High and increasing

Length of training: 4 years

Number of residency programs: 132

Number of residents in training: 4296

Number in U.S. currently Board Certified in specialty: 30,319

1st year median compensation: $177,000

Mean number of hours per week in patient care activities: 50.2

Residency Information

Year 1 is your internship year and the next 3 years will focus on clinical anesthesiology. You will be required to do rotations during your residency which include 2 months of pain management and 2 months of critical care to be eligible for board certification.

Subspecialties require 1 additional year:

Critical Care Medicine- diagnoses, treats and supports patients with multiple organ dysfunction.
Pain Medicine- provides a high level of care for patients experiencing problems with acute, chronic and/or cancer pain.
Pediatric- preoperative, intra-operative and postoperative anesthetic care of children and adults.

Why Choose

There are a number of reasons to choose this specialty and some include: "patient contact but no long-term follow-up or responsibilities," "precision and practical aspects of the specialty," and the "action and excitement of the operating room." Anesthesiologists do not like practicing in specialties where they feel as though there isn't enough "action," having uncontrollable hours or dealing with patients who have chronic diseases that you really cannot help.

Typical Schedule

You will begin your days early, always at the hospital by 7:00 AM. The number of hours which you work can vary from anywhere from 8 to 16 hours on any given day. The good aspect is you know your schedule for the whole week and therefore can plan your life accordingly.

Those who are in private and hospital-based practices are in the operating room for most of the day and then make their pre- and postoperative rounds in the late afternoon (around 3:00 PM). When it comes to a lunch hour you are usually on your own and generally will grab a quick bite to eat in between cases.

When you're "on call," which can be as often as every fifth night, they are up most of the night taking care of obstetric and emergency operations. Lifestyle considerations are generally considered good in this specialty because: you're going to work hard when on the job, but won't be interrupted when you're scheduled to be off.

If You're Interested

Those interested in pursuing this specialty are advised to take an elective of at least one month's duration during your third or fourth year of medical school. It is a a good idea to spend as much time as possible with one anesthesiologist, and not just while in the operating room. You need to have a broad perspective on all the activities which this physician performs.

There are some good electives to take in cardiology and pulmonary medicine because they will be vital to understanding the physiology and pharmacology which you must be comfortable with.

Don't go into this specialty because of the lifestyle factor! You need to choose this specialty because you enjoy evaluating patients, understand physiologic changes, can make decisions and take actions quickly, and can tolerate the fact that surgeons may not appreciate your talents.