Low On Gas

Recently I took some of that golden free time over the holiday to try and drum up some more “MSG Worthy” blogs. Not that I’m all powerful and everyone bows down to my suggested readings located to the left. In fact, it would seem that no one pays particularly much attention to me anyway (as my siteviewer indicates an increasing drop in visitors), so it’s merely more of a “favs” for me when I'm away from my traditional PC. Now you get it – yes?

Anyway, I found that I had a rather hard time finding Anesthesia related blogs. I was fortunate in being able to find a couple that I enjoyed perusing and, even more fortunately, they also had a couple links here and there of other blogs written by Anesthesiologists that for one reason or another were relegated to "look at later".

But I’m concerned…just 3 blogs overall that I found worthy of being placed on my “read regularly” list? Where are all of the great Anesthesia bloggers? I know they have stories – just like surgeons – and are a great deal more well rounded than their said counterpart. Humour, intelligence, and personality abound in anesthesia, so why so few?

I tend to consider the nature of the job when I ask this question. I also find that most people really have absolutely no idea what it is to deliver anesthesia which, possibly, leads to a great deal of frustration. I mean, how many times have I read in Michelle Au’s blog a comment here or there where some commenter says something like: “Yeah, but you were like, a REAL doctor today!"? Far too often, I'm afraid.

I see these, read them again, and think: "WTF? Real doctor? Idiot".

Anesthesiologists are more than just technicians, but most people honestly believe we just put you to sleep and leave the room. Even amongst those we work with regularly I see an amount of ignorance - even if they do hold a great deal of respect for their colleagues - that I just don't understand.

Fortunately I'm hearing that more surgical interns are rotating through anesthesia for a month or two in order to gain a fuller appreciation of the nature of perioperative medicine and it's strengths/ pitfalls before they're too hardened. On top of that more anesthesiologists are also branching out into critical care medicine and other medical fields where the true nature of perioperative medicine can be utilized...maybe we really can all get along.

Perhaps it is the lack of understanding, even amongst our co-workers, that's the causation behind the diminished interest in the anesthesia field to author a weblog or, for that matter, in the reader to actively search out the “Gasman”. Surgeons and ER docs seem to hold a great deal of notoriety as the coolest docs out there and therefore seem to have more opportunity to capture an audience (look at Medblog Addicts "Calendar Docs" on her sidebar and you'll see what I'm talking about). Who cares about the guy who "watches the surgeon work"?

I guess that as I progress in residency I’ll loose a lot more readership since I'm entering a less than cool field (to you, not me), but at least I’ll be another voice in a specialty that doesn’t receive nearly enough acknowledgement or praise.