Personal Narrative: A Career As An Anesthesiologist

I lay in a cot in my own section of the surgical center. I was just about to meet my anesthesiologist for my arthroscopic knee surgery. An anesthesiologist is in charge of administering anesthetics “prior to, during, or after surgery or other medical procedures” (“Anesthesiologists”). The anesthesiologist entered the room and greeted me. She was going to be in charge of my life while I was under. She had to give me just the right amount of anesthetics. Too much and I would perish. Too little and I would awake during surgery and feel every tugging motion inside my knee. Outside the operating room far off is an observatory where an astronomer is hard at work. What he does is astonishing and fascinating to my eyes, but it would not be something

After completing the required twelve years of college one can take an additional fellowship year to specialize in a certain area of anesthesiology such as cardiac, neurological, or obstetric anesthesia (“About the Profession”; “Anesthesiologist Information”). I would personally enjoy doing neurological anesthesia. Moving on, there are over 157 programs offered per year for anesthesiology (Sacks 103). That’s a great deal of programs. But imagine how many more there will be available if one chooses a related occupation instead such as dentistry, pharmacist, physician assistant, etc (“Anesthesiologists”). The outlook for anesthesiology is vast and grows quickly while the outlook for astronomy is slow and more narrow (“Astronomer,” Careers in Focus 51). A slow outlook can mean it is hard to land a job. However, there are over one hundred U.S. colleges offering Ph. D.’s in astronomy and there are a number of “summer or part time jobs” in observatories (“Astronomer,” Careers in Focus 55-56; “Astronomy”). Because of a slow outlook, it may be better to just use astronomy as a hobby. I could go to some related jobs like electrical engineers, geo scientists, or surveyors but anesthesiology seems more interesting (“Astronomers”). Anesthesiologists have more openings and is more of an accessible career rather than being an astronomer, but it is still hard to get in so I still would rather tackle