Careers in Health: Anesthesiology

G. Li, Editor-in-Chief
📍Silicon Valley, USA

Anesthesiology is a specialization in the medical field focused on administering anesthesia, a numbing medicine, before procedures or surgery. Practitioners of anesthesiology are anesthesiologists. 

Surgery is an invasive procedure, with cutting and suturing that causes pain. Anesthesia prevents patients from feeling pain during surgery in different ways, including numbing certain parts of the body or numbing the brain to induce sleep. Typically, in more intensive surgical procedures, anesthesia would render you unconscious throughout the entire procedure. 

Anesthesiologists are medical doctors who take care of giving anesthesia to patients before their surgeries, and manage pain and care before, during, and after surgeries. Besides administering anesthesia, they also ensure the patient’s safety when they undergo surgery. Before surgery, anesthesiologists determine the best anesthesia plan for you by assessing health tests. During surgery, anesthesiologists monitor your vital signs and administer fluids to support your bodily function. After surgery, anesthesiologists are responsible for taking care of you while you recover from the effects of anesthesia. 

There are certain specifications between anesthesiologists. A certified registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA) is a nurse who has complete a nurse anesthesia training program, and specialize in providing anesthesia, typically supervised by a physician anesthesiologist. A certified physician assistant (CAA) while similar to a CRNA, has a science/pre-medical college degree instead of a nursing degree. A physician anesthesiologist is a doctor who specialized in anesthesia after medical school. 

Pursuing a career in anesthesiology (as a physician anesthesiologist) is a grueling task, taking on average at least 12 years to complete. First, you would need to complete roughly four years of an undergraduate program, then after passing the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), another four years of medical school needs to be completed along with the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE). Only after this would you be able to complete a medical residency program, which takes another four years: one year doing a variety of hospital rotations, and the other three specific to anesthesiology. Finally, after these steps you would become state-licensed, and optionally board certified. 

Although the process of becoming an anesthesiologist is hard, doctors in this specialty are highly paid. They usually generate an annual pay of between 400k and 600k and work about 40-60 hours per week. Working hours are, however, relatively unpredictable, with most anesthesiologists’ work time depending on the day and place of work. 

For those aspiring to become anesthesiologists in the future, here is a tip from Dr. William Baker, an anesthesiologist of 18 years. In his interview that he did with Student Doctor Net in 2007, he suggested “to take as many courses as you can to prepare for the medical school curriculum. This will make the first two years easier, because you are reviewing material vs. learning it for the first time. Also don’t worry about being a straight A student in medical school, the difference between an A and a B is not 10% more studying. It is very difficult because you have to know every trivial detail instead of having a strong basic knowledge of science. In our class we had students who dropped out because they could not handle not being at the top of the class.”