Why choose a pediatric anesthesiologist?
Children, especially young children, are not just miniature adults. They have different body proportions, different physiology (how the body works) and different cardiac and respiratory systems. They are growing and changing in ways that adults do not. Their social and psychological needs are also different from those of adults. Children are a lot smaller and come in a large range of sizes.
This changes certain technical aspects of anesthesia and necessitates the ready availability of different sizes and types of equipment. To safely care for children, especially babies and toddlers, pediatric anesthesiologist are best equipped to understand how their bodies work, how they react to medications and anesthesia and how the illnesses they suffer from differ from those in older patients.
A general anesthesiologist is a trained physician who has completed a medical degree, and has undergone a one-year internship followed by a three-year residency program in the practice of anesthesiology.
Our pediatric anesthesiologists are fully trained in pediatric anesthesia and are in full-time pediatric anesthesia practice. Between them, they have more than 200 years of experience in administering anesthesia to all ages of children with all types of conditions. The hospital also offers one of the largest training programs for pediatric anesthesiologists in the country.
Anesthesiologists are trained in all aspects of perioperative care. This includes the preoperative assessment of a patient, the optimization of fitness for surgery, the intra-operative management of anesthesia and the post-operative care of surgical patients.
A pediatric anesthesiologists also train in the management of intensive care patients and the treatment of post-operative and chronic pain. Although all anesthesia training programs include some training in pediatric anesthesiology, their brief exposure to the care of children does not certify that a physician with this training is truly qualified as a pediatric anesthesiologist.
A pediatric anesthesiologist, in addition to finishing general training in anesthesiology, successfully completes an additional specialized year of fellowship training in pediatric anesthesiology at an accredited institution.
Our pediatric fellowship is an intensive experience in the administration of anesthesia to newborns, premature infants, toddlers and older children. Upon completion of the fellowship, the anesthesiologist typically enters a pediatric-based anesthesiology practice, to maintain and further refine their skills.