In medicine, experience is everything. Theoretical knowledge is good to have, but it won't save you in a crisis. It's like asking of Joe Schmoe to make furnitur

In medicine, experience is everything. Theoretical knowledge is good to have, but it won't save you in a crisis. It's like asking of Joe Schmoe to make furniture better than a carpenter without having access to either the tools or the timber to train. Anesthesiologists are the ones who practice the skills most closely related to crisis situations in their everyday job. They will on average do massively better than anyone else, just because they're used to it. Modern medicine, especially interventional, is still more a practical skill than it is science. You can't "know it better theoretically". If I had surgery and something happened, I'd trade an anesthesiologist or CRNA vs. Pretty much any other specialist anyday (except some ER/ICU guys, but not all of them by far).