The anesthesiologist is a physician who has specialization in anesthesiology and is responsible the administration of general or regional anaesthesia and injections during the invasive surgical procedure ensuring patients have little or no discomfort during the process. They are responsible for monitoring a patient’s vital signs and critical life functions during and after the surgery hence they require to make rapid decisions on little data available.
Anaesthesiologists administer inhaled gases and intravenous drugs to enable the patient to become pain-free and unconscious especially for operations done on the head, chest, and abdomen to keep them alive in procedures that could otherwise kill the patient. They also administer intravenous sedation to calm a patient. They administer regional anaesthesia to prevent pain signals from being relayed to the brain and ensure that such patients are also relaxed during the procedure because they are awake during a surgical procedure. Anesthesiologists are mainly stationed in operating rooms and other procedures such as gastrointestinal endoscopy, electrophysiology, and invasive radiology.
Salary
Anesthesiology is ranked as the highest paying career in the US job taking home an average of $335,000 in salary and bonus annually. Anesthesiologists can earn more with additional case volume, overhead expenses, and reimbursements on a given specialization. For instance, an anesthesiologist specializing in pain management makes an average annual income of $460,000 and paedriatic anesthesiologists make an annual salary of $470,000paediatric. This is facilitated by the sensitiveness of their career and the type of risk involved being in charge of a patients life during surgery ensuring they are alive and comfortable.
Education
The anesthesiologists are highly paid because they undergo a rigorous training system. After obtaining an undergraduate degree, anesthesiologists have to attend a medical school after enrolling for and passing the Medical College Admission Test. After graduation, they again enrol for the United States Medical Licencing Examination that will enable them to be accepted into a one-year internship and a three-year residency in anesthesiology. After which, they are again enrolled in a one to a two-year fellowship where they are required to enrol in a critical care or obstetric anaesthesia speciality. On average, an anesthesiologist spends four years in school for an undergraduate college degree, four years of medical school, four-year anesthesiology residency program and additional fellowship year of speciality training for them to become board certified by the American Board of Anaesthesiology.
Why anaesthesiologists are highly paid
According to salarieshub.com, they work a 12-hour day shift although they may at times on 24 hr on call. They are however entitled to weeks of paid vacation and days off as well.The anesthesiologist is required to have specific knowledge of the drugs they use. Not only that, they have an overall knowledge of human physiology hence the rigorous training. They are in charge of the patient during the surgical procedure managing the drugs, fluid balance, the breathing, and airway. They are also highly paid in the US in comparison to other countries in the world.
