Anesthesiology, anaesthesiology or anaesthesia is the medical specialty concerned with the total perioperative care of patients before, during and after surgery. It encompasses anesthesia, intensive care medicine, critical emergency medicine, and pain medicine. A physician specialized in anesthesiology is called an anesthesiologist, anaesthesiologist, or anaesthetist, depending on the country. In some countries, the terms are synonymous, while in other countries, they refer to different positions and anesthetist is only used for non-physicians, such as nurse anesthetists.
The core element of the specialty is the prevention and mitigation of pain and distress using various anesthetic agents, as well as the monitoring and maintenance of a patient's vital functions throughout the perioperativ...
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Anaesthetics; Morton's Ether Inhaler Wellcome L0018234.jpg
Anaesthetics: Relica of Morton's Ether Inhaler, c. 1945.
Wellcome Images
Keywords: anaesthetics
Anesthesia Resident Simulation.jpg
Photo of prebriefing for mixed modality simulation being used to train anesthesia resident at the Un...
Ether Day, or The First Operation with Ether by Robert C. Hinckley.jpg
People in the painting left to right: (1) Newspaper reporter, (2) John Call Dalton, (3) William Will...
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An icon to represent "global thinking".
Maquet Flow-I anesthesia machine.jpg
Flow-I anesthesia machine, manufactured by Maquet, a division of Getinge Group, Getinge, Sweden.
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Physician anesthesiologist.jpg
Lt. Cmdr. Jesse Ehrenfeld, a physician anesthesiologist and a reservist from Nashville, Tennessee, p...