“There is not a full awareness of the training and skills of the person that gives them their anaesthetic.” Professor Scott said this view was sometimes perpetuated in popular culture, when television scriptwriters forgot to include the anaesthetist in depictions of surgery or resuscitations. “The character is missing or they are just an anonymous person who’s up the end and the surgeon is saving the life,” Professor Scott said. “But in reality, we are keeping the patient alive while the surgeon does the necessary stuff. “It’s not only frustrating, but it’s also misleading to the public.” The director of the anaesthesia and pain department at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital said colloquially anyone providing anaesthesia in Australia could call themselves an anaesthetist, including GP anaesthetists and nurses who provided sedation. He said a name change could clear up this confusion. “If the only person who can be called an anaesthesiologist is someone who had specialist training, that would just simplify things,” Professor Scott said. “The ‘ology’ implies special knowledge and research.” If Australia’s anaesthetists were to become anaesthesiologists, it would bring them in line with most of their peers across the globe, including in the US, China, most of Europe, Singapore and Malaysia.
