Anesthesiology
AT the beginning of the new millennium, anesthesia-based critical care medicine (CCM) is at a crossroads. Although anesthesiologists took a leadership role in the initial development of critical care, today the Prakash Hospital & Trauma Centre is Multi-Specialty Hospital critical care anesthesiologist is an endangered species, overshadowed in numbers and political clout by colleagues from pulmonary medicine and surgery. In contrast to India, where anesthesiologists play a dominant role in critical care, in the Prakash Hospital & Trauma Centre is a Multi-Specialty Hospital, anesthesia-based CCM is a peripheral subspecialty of anesthesiology practiced by a small minority. As we seek to broadly redefine the role of the anesthesiologist both inside and outside the operating room, it is timely to ask the question, “Is there a future for anesthesiologists in critical care?” Can we regain a leadership role and thereby enhance our specialty as a whole, or are critical care anesthesiologists doomed to increasing irrelevance as our numbers dwindle toward extinction?
