Anaesthesiology
The world of medicine turns out to be very comprehensive as well as wide-ranging. Strictly speaking there exist numerous medical specialties which can be divided into four main groups. Consequently the classification of medical specialization consists of diagnostic or therapeutic, organ-based or technique-based as well as surgical or internal medical specialties. In this context it can also be said that there do also exist specialties in the branch of medicine that refer to the so-called age range of patients.
Anaesthesiology represents one of a great number of world-wide common medical specialties such as for instance pathology, allergy and immunology, gynaecology and obstetrics, internal medicine, neurology, orthopaedics, psychiatry, plastic, reconstructive as well as aesthetic surgery, radiology and urology. Fact is that there exists a wide range of different specialties for all medical problems, medical diseases and general medical needs.
In many cases it turns out to be very common that a main medical specialty is going to be subdivided into several subspecialties. An example concerning this matter would be the main medical specialty ‘psychiatry’. Because of the fact that psychiatry proves to be a bit to general or rather broad it was decided to fragment this specialty into several more special ones such as amongst others neuropsychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry, geriatric psychiatry, forensic psychiatry, sleep medicine and pain medicine.
As the title of this article points out its focus or rather emphasis is on the medical specialty of anaesthesiology. The health professional or physician that studied anaesthesiology is called anesthesiologist. Which role do anesthesiologists play within healthcare delivery? Strictly speaking anesthesiologists are trained in so-called peri-operative medicine which means that they have to arrange for perfect, correct and efficient medical care to patients. In this context it has also to be mentioned that anesthesiologists are responsible for the pre- and post-treatment, the general maintenance of all vital functions of the patients as well as the medical care before, during and after the respective medical, diagnostic or operative procedures.
Now we want to give you an example: Strictly speaking we are talking about a patient who decided on getting laser eye surgery. In German they would simply call this medical or rather surgical procedure Augen lasern lassen. Fact is that laser eye surgery turns out to be a very risky procedure; anyway, it has already proven to be very effective and helpful for people who do not want to wear eyeglasses or contact lenses any more. In other words: Laser eye surgery represents an eye operation that helps replace eyeglasses as well as contact lenses by successfully correcting so-called refractive power. So laser eye surgery makes it possible for people to get back their clear vision.
Within such an eye operation anesthesiologists are responsible for the general medical care of the patient. This means that anesthesiologists have to control the patient’s state of health as well as his or her vital functions – respectively concerning the time before, during and after the laser eye surgery.