Specializing in Anesthesiology

[Guest OncologyMike]

First question: How many years are required for this specialty? I was told between 5-7 years “after” med school. What’s accurate and what does it depend on?

 

Second question: It appears to me that a lot of people are heading off into this direction upon graduation (after looking at some grad statistics). Is this an overwhelmingly popular specialty to pursue? If so, In your eyes…why?

[Guest UWOMED2005]

I think the anesthesiology residency program is five years (check http://www.carms.ca to confirm.) The 7 might be cases where someone decides to do a couple of fellowships on top of that, for example a pediatric fellowship.

 

This specialty has been all over the board as far as popularity/competitiveness is concerned. 5 to 10 years ago it was quite unpopular (and hence easy to get into). This was true enough that there still is a shortage of anaesthesiologists, particularly in the US. The reasons might have been that there is some to a lot of call (my neighbour two doors down is an anaesthesiologist and she's on call all the time), and it might have been perceived to be lacking the glamour of actually cutting people open.

 

Recently, that has been (for the most part) completely reversed. . . in some years it has been as competitive as pediatrics and even almost as much as Emerg. But that has varied quite a bit year to year. I think the reason it's popular is that it's known as a "socks, shoes and underwear" specialty. What I mean by that is you have almost NO overhead as you don't have to run an office. You just show up to the hospital with socks, shoes and underwear, they give you a set of scrubs, and you return them at the end of the shift. Other things that make it popular is the fact that during your shifts, you have lots of time to read, meaning anaesthesiologists are often the most up-to-date specialists in their field.

 

Hope this helps.

[Guest Ian Wong]

Anesthesiology is a five year residency in Canada and a four year residency in the US. You can get out into practice immediately after residency, or tack on extra years in fellowship to get into Anesthesiology fellowship areas like Critical Care, Pediatric, Pain, etc.

 

It's a really cool field to practice in, particularly as far as practicality/lifestyle issues go. Anesthesiologists are in incredible demand right now, and without them, you don't have surgeons, so they are an integral part of any hospital. Big attractions include the lack of overhead (people don't really realise that the doctor isn't just working when you see them, but that doctors who own offices also spend a huge amount of time running the office, and not doing clinical duties), lack of long-term patient followup (you aren't always chasing patients or patient charts around, nor are you waking up at 6 am to see all of your hospital patients each morning; they come to you instead), and the fact that there's a lot of hands-on time.

 

There's been a small amount of previous discussion about it in the CaRMS forum, which is where I'm going to move this post:

 

pub125.ezboard.com/fpremed101frm25.showMessage?topicID=61.topic

 

Ian

[Guest everyoneloveschem]

Hey, if you med students are ever bored (HA;) ), you could repeat the above conversation with other specialties. It's really helpful and very interesting, kind of a glimpse or taste of whats out there. Would anyone mind describing pediatrics? Or are there better places to learn about this than hastling med students? Thanks.

[Guest UWOMED2005]

Better place to learn this than hassling med students? Yeah, do some observerships/electives when you get into med school.