Study Anesthesiology

What is Anesthesiology?

During the Renaissance period, humanity saw significant discoveries in the medical sciences as well as advances in surgical techniques. However, despite all these advancements, surgical procedures remained an intervention of last resort. Many patients needing surgery chose the possibility of dying rather than surgery and the associated pain of the potentially-helpful procedure.

Imagine going to surgery, fully conscious, biting down a stick as the surgeon hacks off one of your limbs with a saw. Disturbing as it is, this kind of procedures happened often many years ago. The Incas in Ancient Peru even performed head surgeries by drilling holes in the skulls of patients by chewing coca leaves, slowly scraping the scalp away, and spitting into the wounds. Indeed, surgery might not have been worth getting before the 19th century, right?

These terrifying accounts of surgery have led to the study and administration of substances to numb the body and temporary induce loss of awareness. This branch of study is commonly known as “anesthesiology”.  

The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) describes anesthesiology as the practice of medicine dedicated to the total care and pain relief of the surgical patients before, during and after surgery.

The term “Anesthesia”, on the other hand, was first coined by an American physician (Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.), in 1846, from the Greek ἀν (an) meaning “without”, and αἴσθησις (aisthēsis) which means “sensation”. Although there has been endless debate as to whom the discovery of general anesthesia deserves the most credit for, many experts agreed that specific scientific findings in the 18th to 19th centuries were vital to the development of modern anesthetic techniques. Today, anesthesia could be administered through injections and inhalations.

Anesthesiology is a medical specialty that traverses many other fields. An anesthesiologist needs solid foundations in general medicine, physiology, anatomy, pharmacology, neurophysiology, life support, pathophysiology, and various kinds of diseases, to deliver safe and effective patient care.

Anesthesiologists are not just physicians behind a mask who sends patients to sleep and wakes them when a surgery is over. They perform a vital role in the operating room, making life-and-death decisions to protect and maintain essential life functions.

Careers in Anesthesiology

Anesthesiologists are medical doctors who have received extensive training in providing patients with anesthesia to relieve pain. The training usually takes six years of medical school and several years of residency.

Among the career options related to an educational background in anesthesiology are: anesthesiologist/anesthetist, military physician anesthesiologists, surgical technologist, certified nurse anesthetists, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, anesthesiology professor, and medical researcher.

Learning Anesthesiology

In anesthesiology, medical students need to learn about the different routes for anesthesia administration such as regional, intravenous, and inhalation. Aside from these, anyone who’s studying anesthesiology should know different kinds of anesthesia, its indications, side effects, adverse effects, pharmacodynamics, contraindications, and many more.

Of all possible subjects you could study, anesthesiology is a branch of medicine that involves the most "memorization" by far.  Passing medical school, succeeding residency training, and passing your board certification exams, require you to mentally internalize thousands of difficult anesthesiology concepts into your long-term memory.

While reading these anesthesiology concepts can make you feel like receiving a dose of sleep-inducing, body-numbing-anesthetics; they can be learned by means of reading, memorizing, building mnemonics, creating flowcharts, and using other additional tools for learning.

Try to visit the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ website. On their page, you can find content such as Guide to Anesthesiology for Medical Students to help you define your studying. You can also check online videos like animations about how anesthesia works, or crash courses to anesthesiology, and a lot more. Flashcard apps are also beneficial because it will hammer down necessary information about anesthesiology and related subjects.

Brainscape is the best supplementary tool for this purpose.

Anesthesiology in Brainscape

Brainscape proudly offers you the universe’ largest repository of anesthesiology flashcards. In this study platform, you'll find hundreds of classes, decks, and cards for anesthesiology – starting with the most viewed classes below. These study materials are created by different users around the globe including teachers, experts, students (perhaps someone like you), and individuals who want to break down all anesthesiology concepts in a way that doubles learning speed and improve memory retention.

Aside from that, there is also a tremendous benefit to using Brainscape in concocting your own smart flashcards. The creating process will be yet another way to deepen your knowledge of anesthesiology and other related subjects.

Learn Faster in Brainscape

Studies show that the most effective way to learn involves the implementation of science-based learning strategies. Brainscape offers a combination of these strategies – which we have termed Confidence-Based Repetition (CBR).  CBR optimizes the learning process by allocating your study time as efficiently as possible.

How? Every time you answer a flashcard in Brainscape, the system asks you how well you knew the answer, on a scale of 1-5.  Based on your rating, Brainscape's algorithm determines when the card needs to be shown again, with low-confidence items (rated 1) being repeated more frequently and high-confidence items less often.

This algorithm essentially curates your personal learning stream, on an ongoing basis.  It also makes use of the three major cognitive processes that help build long-term memory: Active Recall, Spaced Repetition, and Metacognition.

With Active Recall, you are rehearsing a piece of information from scratch rather than merely identifying the answer among a series of multiple choices.  This extra retrieval effort strengthens connections between neurons and prepares you to apply the learned theoretical concepts in the real world.

Spaced Repetition, on the other hand, solidifies that knowledge by repeating the concept you learned in just the right amount of time before you would have otherwise forgotten it.  Research shows that the more effort you put to remember something, the greater the hippocampus (an organ in the brain associated with memory) will work to build new long-term memory.

Finally, the process of Metacognition happens when you reflect upon how well you knew the concept by rating your confidence. Cognitive science claims that this act of assessing your knowledge strength deepens the memory trace itself.

Many experts agree to the effectiveness of Active Recall, Spaced Repetition, and Metacognition since decades ago, but nobody has applied these techniques more effectively than Brainscape has.  So, why not try Brainscape’s adaptive algorithm to reinforce your learning?

How to Get Started

The best way to experience the benefits of Brainscape – whether you want to create your own flashcards or not, is to have a look at the anesthesiology classes below. You may continue browsing the page to see how the classes are organized into decks. Then, take a look at any deck to see if they may be the best fit for what you are looking to learn. Finally, save one or more classes to allow later viewing on your mobile phone, laptop, or desktop.

Brainscape wishes you the very best with your study of anesthesiology and other subjects you may be facing. Enjoy studying!