Doctors treat a patient in a hospital emergency care unit. Jan. 25-31 is National Anesthesiologist Week. (File photo/Getty Images)
What type of physician is trained to care for people of all ages with any medical condition in any setting?
From trauma to toothaches to transplants, when you’re at your most vulnerable, you want an anesthesiologist.
As we recognize the contributions of these physicians during National Anesthesiologist Week from Jan. 25-31, I want to demystify the important work that we do for all our patients.
In South Carolina, delivery of anesthesia must be supervised by a physician.
As the leader of the anesthesia care team, the anesthesiologist ensures patient safety, reduces the risk of complications, and keeps strong medical standards in place.
In South Carolina, along with 45 other states and Washington, D.C., this physician oversight of anesthesia care is why surgical and anesthetic care is safer than ever before.
Whether you are 1 day old or celebrating your 90th birthday, if you need surgery or sedation, you are our patient. At a moment’s notice, we lead the care of patients with any and every disease in the textbook.
We understand the intricacies of the drugs we administer, and we predict and course correct to avoid any interactions with the medicines you are prescribed by other doctors. No disease or medicine exists that we don’t have to know about because we must care for any patient that arrives in our operating room.
Becoming an anesthesiologist requires intensive training.
After college, anesthesiologists attend four years of medical school where we learn broadly about disease and its treatment. Afterwards, we have four more years of anesthesiology residency where we hone our diagnostic, decision-making, and procedural skills over nearly 15,000 hours of supervised practice. After completing this training and passing five different layers of board certification, many of us undergo one-to-two years of additional fellowship training to become board-certified in sub-specialty fields of anesthesia.
This training is rigorous, and it takes a toll, but it is worth it to gain a unique skill set to best take care of you.
I chose a career in anesthesiology for a simple reason: I love finding the patterns in chaos and complexity and moving immediately toward a solution. Anesthesiologists, like firefighters and police, run toward people who need help.
When you or a loved one is on the brink, an anesthesiologist has the expertise to save you.
You and your family may see nothing more than a happy and successful surgical outcome, but getting that outcome requires navigating a minefield of risk. We prevent strokes, heart attacks and chronic pain before they have a chance to strike on the operating table.
And when the sickest patients present to our operating room, we take total control keeping your brain, heart, kidneys, lungs and even your blood working the way it should. We make split-second, life-saving decisions with limited information and enormous consequences.
We don’t just administer anesthesia in the operating room. Many of us are scientists who perform research to improve the safety of surgery.
Patients with complex medical diseases can safely undergo major surgery, babies can lie completely still for a two-hour MRI, and people who have suffered for years with chronic low back pain can play with their grandkids because of research advances made by anesthesiologists.
Why do all this? It’s simple.
We do it because it is an honor to care for you.
You may not remember the anesthesiologist who turned off the pain of childbirth like a light switch, who saved you from choking to death while you had an allergic reaction during a CT scan, who held your hand as you fell asleep for your appendectomy, or who kept you alive while you underwent a heart transplant, but that anesthesiologist remembers you.
Thank you for trusting us with your care.
