[mouse clicks]
[bell dings]
[upbeat music]
- All right guys, you may notice I'm wearing a white coat,
and that is because I am working in endoscopy today.
So typically, anesthesiologists don't wear white coats,
and the reason for that is, white coats
are not allowed in operating rooms.
However, they are okay in the endoscopy suites,
because it's not really a sterile procedure.
What I am basically doing is supervising CRNAs today,
and they're fantastic.
The CRNAs I work with are very, very skilled.
They're so talented.
They can take care of me and my family any day.
So, it makes my job super easy.
What I do is, I meet the patients,
I pre-op them, I evaluate them for anesthesia,
and make any changes as necessary,
create a preoperative plan that I discuss with the CRNA,
and then help them get the case started if they need to.
I basically have to be around.
When I supervise three to four CRNAs
in the endoscopy suites, I have to be
kind of available in case of an emergency.
Emergencies do happen, and they happen a lot in endoscopy.
So, that is what I'm doing today, and it's so fun.
I love talking to the patients,
and I try to joke around a little bit
and make them feel a little bit more at ease.
So, right now, what I'm doing is
I'm in a little dictation room,
and I am immediately available.
You can probably hear noises,
and that's the sound of the doors
being open and shut from all the endoscopy cases.
So, because of the nature of my job,
I don't film, obviously, patients and patient-care areas
because, you know, it's a privacy issue
and that's more important to me than making a video.
But, I do hope that it kind of gives you an idea
as I take you through my day, what I'm doing
and how I'm doing it, and what that entails.
Because some days, I'm in the operating room
taking care of my own patients, and I love those days.
But sometimes, I'm supervising,
sometimes I'm doing endoscopy,
sometimes I'm doing cath lab,
sometimes I'm doing obstetrics,
sometimes I'm doing vascular or neuro cases,
so I can pretty much do anything.
Some people kind of hyper-specialize
and really just don't feel comfortable doing things
they haven't done in a long time,
so I try to avoid that and keep all of my skills up
by doing a little bit of everything all the time.
So yeah, that's that, and I will check in
with you guys a little bit later.
Currently, if I didn't mention it, it's 10:22,
so we've been going here for a couple of hours.
I typically get to the hospital around 6:45,
and then we start the day around 7:00,
so it's 10:22, and things are going great so far.
So, I'll check in with you guys a little bit later.
All right, guys.
So it is now 3:50, and I have taken over.
A lot of our CRNAs actually leave at 3, so typically,
since I work till 5, Monday through Thursday,
I will relieve CRNAs or take over
in some sort of capacity at 3:00.
So that's what I've done; I relieved a CRNA.
And now, I'm going to to do an EGD and stenting,
and then get another patient ready at 5:00,
but since my shift at 5, one of my colleagues
who works later than me will take over that responsibility,
and then I'm relieved to go home
and, you know, I get to kiss my babies.
So, so far we've done, probably about 30 cases
or so today, which is a pretty good number.
It's fun to meet and chat with all these patients
preoperatively and kind of joke around with them,
and then I get to see them afterwards
and check in on them when they're asleep.
Course they're always like, "I didn't see you in there doc."
I'm like, "You were asleep.
How would you know?"
So far, that is what's going on, and then I got to finish.
I think I have a few minutes of downtime
before I have to start this EGD stent,
so I'm going to work on some paperwork,
submitting all this electronically for billing.
It's a huge part of
an anesthesiologist's job, unfortunately.
And then, before I leave,
I'm going to go check the schedule before tomorrow
to see, kind of, where tentatively
I'm going to be assigned tomorrow.
What is my hair doing right now?
Most of the time, I work in one hospital.
It's my preference to just be in one hospital,
and it's my preference to work all over the hospital.
But, sometimes I go work
at a surgery center and stuff like that,
so I like to kind of know where I'm going,
so I know do I need to wake up extra early,
what time are my start times.
Usually it's 7:30, but sometimes
they're a little bit earlier, like 7:00,
so I'm going to do these cases and I'll check in
with you once I am leaving work.
All right, as promised, it is the end of the day.
I stayed a little bit later, about 5:20.
Really not that big of a deal.
Just so I could finish taking care of a patient.
So, I am leaving the parking garage,
and I'm going to head home, and quickly relieve the nanny.
Kiss my baby, and I'm probably going to try
and do a little bit of electronic paperwork.
I never got a chance to submit the rest of my billing
for the past two days, so I really, really need to do that.
So, I can do that on my phone, which is great.
It's through a special compliant app
that I can submit billing through and it's protected.
So, all in all, a really nice day.
A really pleasant day.
It really helps when you work somewhere
that you just really gel with all the staff.
I feel like that's so crucial in anesthesiology.
It is not a solo job.
You work hand-in-hand with surgeons,
gastroenterologists, cardiologists,
to help them do their procedures,
and then you work with techs and CRNAs and AAs.
I mean, there's just so many people,
you have to really like the people
you work with in this job, and fortunately,
this job that I've been working at
for almost the past year, is my forever job.
I love it.
I love the place.
I love the hospital.
I love the people.
It's very fulfilling and I feel
very blessed to be where I am today.
I know that it's not the most helpful thing
that I can't show you me actively doing my job,
but it is a privacy issue for patients.
Okay everybody, it's the next day,
and I'm sorry I didn't vlog at
the end of the day yesterday, but I just got carried away.
I hung out with my daughter, and then I actually
made it an early night cause I
was kind of tired for some reason.
Went to bed at like 8:49, I think, 8:50.
So today, I'm in cath lab.
One of my favorite places to be,
so I will continue for a couple more minutes
of footage here, and then, that'll be it.
So, I am here in cath lab, waiting on a physician,
a cardiologist, to get here so that we can do
a transesophageal echo under anesthesia.
Usually those require anesthesia
because it's, basically, uncomfortable.
So, I'm just waiting on that.
I've spoken to the patient and everything,
and it's really interesting because the patient
is not the most straightforward case.
So, I've got everything ready,
and I've got all the appropriate medications,
and I've got emergency stuff ready,
and I'm excited because we get to try
a different type of oxygen mask
that has a little cut-out hole for the echo probe
that goes in the patient's esophagus.
So, I'm excited.
I mean, I'm nerding out right now,
but I'm excited to try this kind of new.
Normally, we just use a nasal canyon, so it's kind of cool.
So, I have done two TEEs, a TEE is a transesophageal echo,
where they put that probe,
I don't know if I mentioned that earlier.
I'm about to do a cardioversion,
which converts someone from an abnormal rhythm
to a normal rhythm of their heart.
And after that, they've added on another
transesophageal echo for a patient with, possibly,
bacterial endocarditis, which is a vegetation or infection
around one of the valves of the heart.
So, I went and saw that patient,
cause they wanted to make sure it was okay by me first,
and the patient would be safe under anesthesia,
and I evaluated him and talked to him, and he looks great.
So, we're going to add that on, and then,
it'll be 3:00, and as you know,
as I mentioned from yesterday,
at 3:00 I go usually relieve my colleagues
or my CRNAs, who only work until 3.
Sometimes, I'll just go from one
complete spectrum to another, like,
I'll be doing pediatrics and then I'll go to adult.
Or I'll be doing cath lab and I'll go to general
or main OR, so it's all very inflex.
In this job, you really have to be adaptable,
to go with the flow, to be easygoing.
Like I said, I'm not the most easygoing person,
but this job has trained me to be that,
because you just have to be adaptable, flexible
when you're in the field of anesthesia.
And, I've known people who are not adaptable
and not flexible in this career,
and it's to their detriment.
So anyways, something interesting
if you were considering the field of anesthesiology.
So, I will check in with you guys in a little bit.
So, I just finished my last case in cath lab.
It's about 2:00.
I'm waiting for my 3:00 assignment,
and somebody who just came from a procedure in the cath lab,
in the door next to me while I was doing a procedure,
went into v-fib arrest, which is ventricular fibrillation.
I was able to pop my head out and see if
they needed my help, but fortunately,
after one shock, he was brought back to life,
and awake and breathing and all that.
So, my services were not needed,
but fortunately, I was very close-by
in case they needed me to put in an airway or something.
But, that's crazy.
Literally, stuff like this happens all day, every day.
And, that's part of why I love my job.
I just love being needed every once in a while.
Now, if it was constant, it would really, really,
really wear me down, but it's just nice to be
available and needed whenever bad things happen.
So, I'm going to go get some lunch
because it's 2 p.m. and I need to eat.
And then, I'm going to go take over a room, probably,
at 3:00, and we'll go from there.
And, I'll check in with you at the end of the day.
Bye.
Okay guys, as you can see, I am back home.
And, I'm going to end it here.
I hope that you found it helpful.
I ended up taking over a room at 3:00,
finishing that case, and then being the board runner,
which means that you kind of coordinate
all the rest of the surgeries and stuff.
And basically, holding the phone,
which is kind of the main anesthesia phone,
for a couple hours until 5:00 hit.
And then, one of my partners took over.
So anyway, that'll wrap it up.
This actually ended up being two days
in the life of an anesthesiologist.
Again, you can see they're both very different,
but still equally fun, and tomorrow's a brand new day.
Like this video if you want to see more videos like this.
Like this video, leave a comment
saying that you want to see more videos like this,
and thank you so much for watching.
I'll see you in the next one.
Bye.
["Make Me Move" by Culture Code]