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Comment by devilbunny | Hacker News Reader

One of the reasons I am an anesthesiologist is that while you might have issues with the surgeon or the surgery, I find that very few people decline my services. If anything, they generally want more.

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Was always a childhood plan to do anaesthetics. Always fascinated me. But I did get to spend time as a paramedic and did many a rapid sequence induction. I never met an anaesthetist who wasn't happy to share time and knowledge when we had to do periodic tubes for recert or CE. So I appreciate you.

Thank you. You do far more important work than I do and we appreciate it.

> If anything, they generally want more.

As long as they wake up ...

My father-in-law once asked me how long it would take to teach him how to put people to sleep. I said, five minutes, but if you want them to wake up at the end, a lot longer.

We very rarely lose people unexpectedly.

That kinda makes it sound like sometimes you are expecting to lose people and do it anyway...

I interpret that as they lose people all the time, but if you come into the ER with 10 bullet holes in you or after coming to a grinding halt on the freeway after a head on collision, they don't expect you to make it and it's not the sleepy drugs at fault.

Here's a thing humans do: They knew what they meant, but saw an amusing way it could be parsed, and said that, because it's amusing. We all knew what the comment really meant.

There's actually a few ways it could have been meant, or it could have been meant to convey all of them. We all have a pretty good idea in the general sense what they meant, but that amusing reply is also an invitation for the person to elaborate and add nuance.

They probably do. Not all medical procedures have a greater than 50% expected chance of survival, but it still might be better than the alternative. That doesn't necessarily mean the anesthesiologist is the once responsible for the death, nor that anyone is, for that matter.

Yes, because the expected survival rate without surgical intervention is zero. With it, slim, but not zero.

I have a friend that is a retired anesthesiologist.

He made very good money, in his day, but, apparently, the malpractice insurance for anesthesiologists, is sky-high.

I am fortunate to have a very good dentist, these days. This was not always the case. I have two crowns, and I believe they are both from dentists that caused tooth damage, on purpose.

My teeth are ugly, but very strong.

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