Anesthesiology

Anaesthesiology (British English) or anesthesiology (American English) is a branch of medicine that focuses on pain relief during and after surgery. This treatment is called anesthesia.^[1] Practitioners of anesthesiology are called anesthesiologists or, in some countries, anaesthetists.

One of the fundamental practices of anesthesiologists is that of general anesthesia in which a person is placed in a medical coma. This is performed to permit surgery without the individual responding to pain (analgesia) during surgery or remembering the surgery.

If complete analgesia is not necessary, then a nerve block can be performed to induce analgesia in a local or regional area of the body. For example, epidural administration of a local anesthetic is commonly performed on the mother during childbirth to reduce the pain while permitting the mother to be awake and active in labor & delivery (general anesthesia would not permit this).

Anesthesiologists often also undertake non-surgical pain relief and critical care management that includes working in an intensive care unit.^[1]

Training

In the United States, anesthesiologists attend 4 years of medical school and then follow it with 4 years of residency. Nurse anesthetists are registered nurses with additional post-graduate training in anesthesia with at least one year of work experience in an intensive care unit.

Knowledge

Effective practice of anesthesiology requires several areas of knowledge by the practitioner, some of which are:

• Pharmacology of commonly used drugs including inhalational anaesthetics, topical anesthetics, & vasopressors as well as numerous other drugs used in association with anesthetics (e.g., ondansetron, glycopyrrolate)
• Monitors: electrocardiography, entropy monitoring, neuromuscular monitoring
• Mechanical ventilation
• Anatomical knowledge of the nervous system for nerve blocks, etc.
• Other areas of medicine (e.g., cardiology) to assess the risk of anesthesia to adequately have informed consent

See also

• American Board of Anesthesiology
• American Osteopathic Board of Anesthesiology

References

1. "What is Anesthesiology". American Society of Anesthesiologists. Retrieved 2014-03-20.