4 ms·

$400k+ last I heard

by beamatronic 6y ago

$400k+ last I heard

Scoundreller 6y ago
Double that if you’re crooked :)
kevingadd 6y ago
No complaints here given how your life is in their hands during surgery
- eecc 6y ago
  Not to mention the nurse inventorising the clamps and pads that the surgeon is stuffing inside your belly. Heck, even the cleaner carefully mopping every crevice in the surgery room to kill all those pesky MRSA bacteria before they spoil your day. Surgery is a team effort
  - rscho 6y ago
    Team effort, my ass. In the OR, everyone except the surgeon is treated like shit and especially anesthesiologists, since they're first to arrive, last to leave and have no choice but to handle whatever comes their way.
- philwelch 6y ago
  Yeah, definitely not the kind of job you give to the lowest bidder.
- a_imho 6y ago
  Stupid question, because I never understood this. Anesthetics seems like a mostly mechanical process with little room to deviate from the established procedures both for medical and legal reasons. What am I missing, what makes anesthesiologist that highly paid?
  - Peradine 6y ago
    A common comparison is drawn to flying a plane - its a proceduralised and mechanical process for a lot of the time, but occasionally unexpected things happen and you need knowledge and skills to react quickly and prevent serious injury and death. Its like flying a plane but if every plane was built differently with no instruction manual, some of the planes are badly broken before you take off, and someone's trying to repair the engines in mid air. I'm currently revising for my anaesthetics exams. The things I'm meant to know include: * The physics and mechanical principles of all the equipment I use, from the ventilator to the pulse oximiter - so that I can identify when and how it might fail and how to respond * The pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and mechanism of all the drugs I might use - so I can understand their effects, side-effects, and interactions * The physiology and function of the human body, including the respiratory, circulatory, neurological, renal, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, and immune systems - so I can understand how anaesthesia effects these systems, and how diseases and disorders of the systems will interact with the anaesthetic and how problems can be identified and treated * The anatomy of the body, with particular focus on the head and neck anatomy to aide in intubation and airway procedures, and neuro-anatomy to aide in regional anaesthetic techniques * The anatomical, phsiological, and pharmacological consequences of pregnancy, childhood, old-age, and a huge variety of acute and chronic diseases - so I can understand and adapt anaesthetics to these conditions
  - rleigh 6y ago
    You would have to read up on the science of anaesthesiology for a full understanding. I'll describe just a few of the subtleties I've encountered. About two decades back, I was a medical researcher who did all the vetinary qualifications for animal research including general anaesthesia, all the different types of analgesics and dissociatives, and I subsequently spent a few months working with mice and injectable liquid anaesthetics. You're playing a fine balance between keeping the animal under, and killing it. You have to continually observe and balance the degree of anaesthesia which you can test with pain reflexes and core reflexes, and adjust the dosage accordingly. Too much and you depress the core functions to the point breathing stops. Too little and the animal retains consciousness along with pain reflexes. With larger animals you can use similar equipment to what you would use with humans. Small ones require direct physical observation. There's a simple dosage rule: n ml anaesthetic per gram bodyweight. So you would weigh the mouse, calculate the dose and then inject it. Sounds easy enough. Not so. It also depends upon the percentage of fat tissue. If the mouse is fat, the fat tissue will absorb the anaesthetic and then slowly release it. This changes the dynamics of how fast the anaesthetic takes effect, and how deep and how long lasting the anaesthesia will be. Skinny mice would go under almost immediately. Fat mice might take 10 minutes. But if you topped up the dose, you would risk the dosage reaching fatal levels a few minutes down the line as the fat tissue released its stored anaesthetic. You would learn to adapt the formula by experience, but this is just one factor to consider. Now imagine how difficult this is with obese human patients. Or anorexic patients. Or sick patients. Patients on various drugs. Or patients with different metabolic rates. There are dozens of factors, making each case unique. Anaesthesiologists have a huge responsibility, and taking great care and skill to keep their patients alive. We think of this as routine, and it is, but that doesn't make it simple or easy to do. This stuff looks simple on paper. Doing it in practice is far, far more difficult and demanding.

$400k+ last I heard

Scoundreller 6y ago

Double that if you’re crooked :)

kevingadd 6y ago

No complaints here given how your life is in their hands during surgery

eecc 6y ago
Not to mention the nurse inventorising the clamps and pads that the surgeon is stuffing inside your belly. Heck, even the cleaner carefully mopping every crevice in the surgery room to kill all those pesky MRSA bacteria before they spoil your day. Surgery is a team effort
- rscho 6y ago
  Team effort, my ass. In the OR, everyone except the surgeon is treated like shit and especially anesthesiologists, since they're first to arrive, last to leave and have no choice but to handle whatever comes their way.
philwelch 6y ago
Yeah, definitely not the kind of job you give to the lowest bidder.
a_imho 6y ago
Stupid question, because I never understood this. Anesthetics seems like a mostly mechanical process with little room to deviate from the established procedures both for medical and legal reasons. What am I missing, what makes anesthesiologist that highly paid?
- Peradine 6y ago
  A common comparison is drawn to flying a plane - its a proceduralised and mechanical process for a lot of the time, but occasionally unexpected things happen and you need knowledge and skills to react quickly and prevent serious injury and death. Its like flying a plane but if every plane was built differently with no instruction manual, some of the planes are badly broken before you take off, and someone's trying to repair the engines in mid air. I'm currently revising for my anaesthetics exams. The things I'm meant to know include: * The physics and mechanical principles of all the equipment I use, from the ventilator to the pulse oximiter - so that I can identify when and how it might fail and how to respond * The pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and mechanism of all the drugs I might use - so I can understand their effects, side-effects, and interactions * The physiology and function of the human body, including the respiratory, circulatory, neurological, renal, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, and immune systems - so I can understand how anaesthesia effects these systems, and how diseases and disorders of the systems will interact with the anaesthetic and how problems can be identified and treated * The anatomy of the body, with particular focus on the head and neck anatomy to aide in intubation and airway procedures, and neuro-anatomy to aide in regional anaesthetic techniques * The anatomical, phsiological, and pharmacological consequences of pregnancy, childhood, old-age, and a huge variety of acute and chronic diseases - so I can understand and adapt anaesthetics to these conditions
- rleigh 6y ago
  You would have to read up on the science of anaesthesiology for a full understanding. I'll describe just a few of the subtleties I've encountered. About two decades back, I was a medical researcher who did all the vetinary qualifications for animal research including general anaesthesia, all the different types of analgesics and dissociatives, and I subsequently spent a few months working with mice and injectable liquid anaesthetics. You're playing a fine balance between keeping the animal under, and killing it. You have to continually observe and balance the degree of anaesthesia which you can test with pain reflexes and core reflexes, and adjust the dosage accordingly. Too much and you depress the core functions to the point breathing stops. Too little and the animal retains consciousness along with pain reflexes. With larger animals you can use similar equipment to what you would use with humans. Small ones require direct physical observation. There's a simple dosage rule: n ml anaesthetic per gram bodyweight. So you would weigh the mouse, calculate the dose and then inject it. Sounds easy enough. Not so. It also depends upon the percentage of fat tissue. If the mouse is fat, the fat tissue will absorb the anaesthetic and then slowly release it. This changes the dynamics of how fast the anaesthetic takes effect, and how deep and how long lasting the anaesthesia will be. Skinny mice would go under almost immediately. Fat mice might take 10 minutes. But if you topped up the dose, you would risk the dosage reaching fatal levels a few minutes down the line as the fat tissue released its stored anaesthetic. You would learn to adapt the formula by experience, but this is just one factor to consider. Now imagine how difficult this is with obese human patients. Or anorexic patients. Or sick patients. Patients on various drugs. Or patients with different metabolic rates. There are dozens of factors, making each case unique. Anaesthesiologists have a huge responsibility, and taking great care and skill to keep their patients alive. We think of this as routine, and it is, but that doesn't make it simple or easy to do. This stuff looks simple on paper. Doing it in practice is far, far more difficult and demanding.