Questions to Ask an Anesthesiologist About Their Job
Twenty questions for students and trainees weighing up anesthesiology as a career. They cover the shape of an ordinary day, call and supervision, what happens after a bad case, and how the answers differ between academic, community and private practice.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What made you choose anesthesiology over the other specialties you considered?
Why ask it
Naming the alternatives is the useful part. Someone who chose it over emergency medicine wanted the physiology and the control; someone who chose it over surgery often wanted the hours, and will say so if you ask what else was on the list.
What time do you start, and what happens in the first hour?
Why ask it
Anesthesia days begin earlier than most hospital jobs and the first hour is machine checks, chart review and the pre-op visit. If a candid answer puts you off, that is worth knowing before residency rather than during it.
How many cases do you usually do in a day, and how much of the time are you in the room?
Why ask it
This is the question that separates practice settings. Supervising four rooms with anesthetists is a different job from doing your own cases, and the numbers tell you which one you are hearing about.
How often are you on call, and what does a call night actually involve?
Why ask it
Ask for the schedule in numbers, nights per month, weekends per year, whether call is from home. Vague answers here usually mean the schedule is worse than they want to admit.
What do you do during the long stretch in the middle of a stable case?
Why ask it
The honest answer, charting, watching trends, reading, talking to the team, is the part of the job nobody depicts. If constant low-grade vigilance without much to do sounds unbearable to you, that matters more than any dramatic story.
Which parts of the job still make you nervous after all these years?
Why ask it
Better than asking about the hardest case. Experienced anesthesiologists usually name a category rather than an event: difficult airways, sick patients on short notice, paediatric inductions, obstetric emergencies.
How do you decide a patient is too unwell to proceed, and what happens when the surgeon disagrees?
Why ask it
This is where the job's real authority lives. Listen for whether they describe a process and an escalation route, or just say it rarely comes up, which usually means they have not had to hold that line.
What does the pre-op conversation with an anxious patient sound like when it goes well?
Why ask it
Asking for the script rather than the philosophy gets you actual sentences. It also reveals how much of the role is reassurance delivered under time pressure in a corridor.
How do you work with the anesthetists or residents you supervise?
Why ask it
Team structure varies enormously by country and hospital, and it determines how much of your day is hands-on. A vague answer here often means friction they would rather not describe.
What happens after a case goes badly?
Why ask it
Ask plainly. What you want to know is whether the department has debriefs, morbidity review and any real support, or whether people are expected back in the next room. Answers here predict burnout better than hours do.
What did residency demand that you did not expect?
Why ask it
Common answers involve the volume of pharmacology, being examined verbally in front of people, and how early the responsibility starts. Useful for planning rather than for reassurance.
Which subspecialties did you consider, and what would you pick now?
Why ask it
Cardiac, paediatric, obstetric, regional, pain and critical care lead to very different lives. Asking what they would choose today accounts for how the field has moved since they trained.
How much of your work is now outside the operating room?
Why ask it
Pre-assessment clinics, endoscopy lists, interventional radiology, intensive care and pain services take up a growing share of many posts. The proportion tells you what you would actually be doing.
Has the introduction of newer drugs and monitoring changed how you practise?
Why ask it
Ask for a specific change rather than a general trend: depth-of-anaesthesia monitoring, ultrasound-guided blocks, video laryngoscopy. Concrete answers show whether the department invests in its equipment.
How much control do you have over your own list and your leave?
Why ask it
Autonomy in anesthesia is mostly scheduling autonomy, and it varies more between employers than between countries. This is the lever people wish they had negotiated harder on.
What is the job market like where you are, and how would you judge an offer?
Why ask it
Practitioners know which local groups are short-staffed and which have lost people. Ask what they would look at in a contract, and you will get the terms that turned out to matter.
What happens to your day when a case runs three hours over?
Why ask it
Overruns are routine and reveal the culture: who relieves you, whether the next list is cancelled, whether anyone asks. This is a better test of a department than its mission statement.
Do you still enjoy the work on an ordinary day, not a dramatic one?
Why ask it
The dramatic saves sustain nobody through a career. What you want to hear is whether the routine list is satisfying, or merely tolerable, for someone twenty years in.
What would make you tell someone not to do this?
Why ask it
An easier question to answer honestly than asking for general advice. Look for specifics: intolerance of interrupted sleep, dislike of being invisible to patients, needing continuity of care.
Knowing what the job turned out to be, would you choose it again?
Why ask it
Ask last. The value is in the pause before the answer and in what they qualify it with, since almost nobody says a flat no to a student in front of them.
Getting a realistic picture of anesthesiology
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Who to ask, and when
Ask people at different stages
A senior resident, a consultant five years in and someone near retirement will give you three different jobs. The resident knows the current exams, the mid-career doctor knows the schedule, and the senior one knows what wore out.
Ask across settings
Academic centres, community hospitals, private groups and standalone surgical centres differ in case mix, supervision, pay and call. Always ask which of those you are hearing about before you generalise.
Catch them at the right moment
Between cases in the anesthetic room is usually fine; during induction, emergence or a handover is not. Ask when a good moment would be and accept the answer.
How to ask so you get straight answers
- Ask for numbers, not impressions: cases per day, nights per month, weeks of leave, years to certification.
- Ask what they would tell a friend rather than what they would tell a student.
- When you get an inspiring answer, follow it with 'and what about on a normal week?'
- Ask about the last time something happened rather than how things generally are.
- Take the negatives seriously instead of arguing with them. People stop being candid once you start reassuring them.
- Finish by asking who else you should speak to, then ask that person a different question.
Common mistakes
Judging the job by its emergencies
Most of anesthesiology is preparation, monitoring and small adjustments. Choosing it for the crises is a poor fit for a career that is mostly quiet vigilance punctuated by short periods of high demand.
Ignoring the invisibility
Patients frequently do not remember meeting you and often thank the surgeon for the anesthetic. People who need recognition from patients tend to find this harder than they expected.
Only counting the hours
Total hours matter less than when they fall. Nights, early starts and unpredictable finishes affect the rest of your life more than the weekly total does.
Asking about pay first
It is a fair question and a bad opener. Ask about the work, then ask how they would evaluate an offer, which tends to produce ranges and contract terms rather than a closed door.
Follow up properly
Write down what you were told the same day, including the numbers, and note which setting each answer came from. If you want to shadow, ask at the end of the conversation rather than by email later, and offer a specific day. A short thank-you naming the one thing that changed your thinking is what makes a second visit easy to arrange.