Anesthesiologists are physicians first and specialists in anesthesia second. This important distinction is often lost on policymakers and has been well documented in public surveys conducted by ASA in which many of our neighbors and friends apparently fail to realize we are doctors. The latest “blur-the-lines” tactic developed by the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists is the nonsensical and self-appointed “nurse anesthesiologists” moniker, which the ASA and multiple state component societies are aggressively pushing back against. This misrepresentation and lack of transparency confuses patients, lawmakers, the media, and health care executives into thinking that anesthesiologists are interchangeable with non-physicians, who despite possessing less education and training, are attempting to take advantage of these ambiguities.
Within this challenging health care nomenclature landscape, anesthesiologists should continue to distinguish themselves from those who are not doctors but who nonetheless claim to be able to do what we do as well as we do...
