Anesthesiology

Anesthesiology (spelled anaesthesiology in UK English) is the medical specialty concerned with anesthesia and anesthetics. Anesthesia is total or partial loss of sensation with or without the loss of consciousness. The American Society of Anesthesiologists defines anesthesiology as "the practice of medicine dedicated to the relief of pain and total care of the surgical patient before, during and after surgery."

Over the past century, the study and administration of anesthesia has become more complex. Historically, anesthesia providers were almost solely utilized during surgery to administer general anesthesia in which a person is placed in a pharmacologic coma. This is performed to permit surgery without the individual responding to pain during surgery or remembering the surgery.

However,  due to the advances in medicine, many procedures or diagnostic tests do not require general anesthesia and can be performed using various forms of sedation or regional anesthesia, which can be performed to induce analgesia in a region of the body. For example, epidural administration of a local anesthetic is commonly performed on the mother during childbirth to reduce labor pain while permitting the mother to be awake and active in labor and delivery.

In the United States, anesthesiologists may also perform non-surgical pain management (termed pain medicine) and provide care for patients in intensive care units (termed critical care medicine). Certified registered nurse anesthetists may also perform non-surgical pain management.

Training
In the United States, anesthesiologists attend four years of medical school to earn either a Doctor of Medicine (MD) or Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) degree and then follow it with four years of residency. Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) are advanced practice registered nurses with additional post-graduate training in anesthesia.

Knowledge
Effective practice of anesthesiology requires several areas of knowledge by the practitioner, some of which are:
 * Pharmacology of commonly used drugs, including inhalational anesthetics, topical anesthetics, and vasopressors, as well as numerous other drugs used in association with anesthetics (e.g., ondansetron, glycopyrrolate)
 * Monitors: electrocardiography, electroencephalography, electromyography, entropy monitoring, neuromuscular monitoring, cortical stimulation mapping, and neuromorphology
 * Mechanical ventilation
 * Anatomical knowledge of the nervous system for nerve blocks, etc.
 * Other areas of medicine (e.g., cardiology, pulmonology, obstetrics) to assess the risk of anesthesia to adequately have informed consent, and knowledge of anesthesia regarding how it affects certain age groups (neonates, pediatrics, geriatrics)