Who has a worse reputation? Doctors vs Lawyers...

[paeday]

Originally Posted by Jumbie

There isn't anything wrong with it, you're right. If that's what they want to do then so be it. I love the idea of life as an anesthesiologist. There's not a whole lot to do once the patient is induced and asleep (the risk is in putting them down and waking them back up plus any medication interactions), there's very good money to be made, no call usually (if in a major hospital) so hours are good, etc., etc. However, I don't enjoy it and I'd rather do something I like (which is general practitioner) with its own particular shortcomings such as the shittier lifestyle and decreased pay.

I've had many people (like nurses) tell me I should be a surgeon. I guess that's based on my appearance as I'm tall, look athletic, etc. However, I actually don't care for blood a whole hell of a lot, lack the finesse that is sometimes required, and don't work all that well under stress so surgery and things like ER are out for me. And like your father's classmate, I don't have the ego/personality type for it. Not all surgeons do but, in my limited experience, most do.

Anyway, my point was that it seems strange to me that people would want to go into a field which traditionally is involved in caring for others and have an attitude of not even wanting to interact/talk to their patients. I've seen attendings say it e.g. "Why do you think I chose this field. Do you think I want to talk to my patients?" and I've had a friend (who is actually a very personable, likeable individual) say something like "Yeah, okay, it's time to go to sleep now" when referring to patients that are going to "annoy" him.

Jumbie, as someone in the field of anesthesiology, I just wanted to let you know that there is a lot more to anethesiology than inducing the patient and waking them up. If you ever been involved in taking care of really sick patients....you are keeping the patient alive while the surgeon does his/her job. Check out a liver transplant, bad trauma, cardiac surgery, etc. If you rotate at an outpatient place with healthy patients and straightforward cases you may get that impression that all there is to it is to put a patient to sleep and wake them up. This may seem very boring but I can tell you if you ask any anesthesiogist about stress most of them will tell you that there is a significant amount of stress because we deal with airways, breathing, circulation all if which if you negelect for more than a few minutes you will have permanent damage (hypoxic brain injury is one of our biggest fears). We do get a lot of routine cases but have enough of the tough ones to keep things interesting.

Also, most of us take call....it's a part of life because of OB, trauma, emergency surgery, etc. Again, unless you work at a outpatient place with easy patients/procedures (which is also getting harder because sicker patients are arriving to these places to avoid cost involved with overnight admissions). OB is another field married to our speciality because if you have fetal distress you may have to get that baby out immediately via c-section and that cannot be done (humanely at least) without epidural/spinal or gen. anesthesia. Even if a woman chooses not to get an epidural, for labor...if their baby gets in trouble we have to be ready to administer anesthesia for an emrgency c-section. Babies come when they decide to come....you can't have only daylight hours for most anesthesia practices.

Jumbie, you may want to give anethesiology a real good look....I love my job and have no regrets. Remember that about 15-30% of med school grads change their speciality choice. We get lots of
people who change out of surgery, internal medicine, and ER. Almost nobody ever changes out of anesthesiology. We take knowledge of medicine and apply physiology and pharmacology to get patients through the perioperative period. It's a very acute, goal directed field. Most med students don't get a real good representation of the field with their short rotations. The field is getting competative. In our interviews we have been seeing top 10% in class with average USMLE in the mid 240's. Anyway, check us out and sorry about rant....

 

[Jumbie]

Fair enough. You're right that I didn't get that much exposure to it. Many of my friends did electives in addition to our cores and several are applying for anesthesiolgy this year but, with what little exposure I did have, it's just not the field for me. Maybe I'll change my mind later on. One of the residents at my hospital was previously an Ob attending. I apologize because I did downplay how difficult the field is but when half the time I see residents and attendings playing soduku, checking stuff on their iPhone, etc. during procedures, it does make one wonder. I guess that when everything's humming along fine, then it's great but I am aware that when things go wrong, they go very wrong, very quickly. The physiology aspect was a lot more involved than I first suspected. There is a lot to it and I again didn't mean to downplay the field. Obviously it's not as easy as it may sometimes appear. I've actually had people tell me it's really quite stressful and people tend to burn out. Don't know for myself how true that is. Regarding the call, what I meant is that there is someone covering. It's not like in Ob, for example, where your patient can go into labor at any moment and you specifically have to go in to deliver. At least at my hospital. Whichever attending is on call that night will handle the case. They don't call a particular one from home to come in. Cheers.

 

[whodini]

Originally Posted by paeday

(Great post)

This summed up why I want to get into anesthesiology after med school and it's nice to have my thoughts reaffirmed.

 

[Jumbie]

Originally Posted by whodini

This summed up why I want to get into anesthesiology after med school and it's nice to have my thoughts reaffirmed.

Admit it's the $$ and lifestyle. I won't judge you for it.

 

[whodini]

Originally Posted by Jumbie

Admit it's the $$ and lifestyle. I won't judge you for it.

 

[Lucky Strike]

Originally Posted by Dmax

I saw this huge billboard in Brooklyn today. WTF is wrong with these people.

Ugly-ass shoes?

 

[chobochobo]

Originally Posted by Concordia

There's nothing wrong with this, BTW. One of my father's mentors liked to say "what you do isn't what you're good at, it's what you are." He had one classmate with all the physical skills to be a great surgeon but who lacked the big ego and the love of making split-second decisions in the spotlight. This guy became a radiologist and was probably better at that than surgery.

It's a myth that surgeons need some super duper 'physical skills'. What is important for any doctor/surgeon/physician is *common sense*, followed by 'clinical sense'. It's not all about being able to tie a knot in upside down whilst blindfolded - the rubbish about 'hand eye coordination' was just perpetuated for those wanted to keep it in the 'old boys club', choosing cricket or rugby players. As long as you're not totally cack-handed, making good decisions is by far and away the most important factor to doing good for patients. Ego doesn't have to be a defining characteristic of a 'good' surgeon either.

 

[HORNS]

Originally Posted by chobochobo

It's a myth that surgeons need some super duper 'physical skills'. What is important for any doctor/surgeon/physician is *common sense*, followed by 'clinical sense'. It's not all about being able to tie a knot in upside down whilst blindfolded - the rubbish about 'hand eye coordination' was just perpetuated for those wanted to keep it in the 'old boys club', choosing cricket or rugby players. As long as you're not totally cack-handed, making good decisions is by far and away the most important factor to doing good for patients. Ego doesn't have to be a defining characteristic of a 'good' surgeon either.

Yup. The qualities that make a great surgeon exist in the decisions that lead up to the surgery itself.

However, I believe that confidence (not ego) is a quality that a great surgeon must possess - you don't want someone mucking around in your thoracic cavity who isn't confident.

But surgery is certainly not for everyone. There are wonderful, ethical, and top-of-their-game physicians that wouldn't do well as surgeons. There's a healthy detachment involved. Also, some physicians probably possess the intellectual but not the kinesthetic skills to do so.

 

[michaeljkrell]

My sister just finished her surgery rotatations and loved it. She said that if she didn't have eight kids she would be a surgeon.