School children look behind the mask of Anaesthesia

Anaesthetists at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital are revealing the secrets of their highly skills profession to up to 200 local school children on Friday 18th November 2005.

Anaesthetists are fully trained doctors with a wealth of skills, but the public perception is often of anonymous technicians who only put people to sleep.

Up to 200 high school students from across Norfolk are visiting the hospital and will get a chance to talk to anaesthetists and learn more about the work they do. In the hospital’s clinical skills training room, they will also see some of the work of anaesthetists such as basic life support, intubations, and the students will also get a tour of an operating theatre.

Anaesthetists are fully-qualified doctors who undergo at least six years of training and are found in a wide variety of hospital departments. Apart from putting patients to sleep before operations, they also run intensive care units, pain clinics and manage pain relief during labour.

Consultant anaesthetist Dr Stuart Brown said: “The work of anaesthetists is not simply about putting people to sleep and there is a perception that we are technicians and not doctors but we perform a very wide ranging role in modern medicine and we thought it would be a good idea to help raise local awareness of our role in 21st century healthcare.”

The Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital NHS Trust currently employs a total of 78 anaesthetists.