Anesthesia orientation for the medical student.

Exposure of all medical students to selected anesthesiology-related subjects provides better acquaintance with the procedures and practices of the specialty. Airway management, methods of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and patient monitoring are among the anesthesiologist's technics that have widespread applicability to all areas of medicine. The pharmacology of the many drugs, not only anesthetic agents, used in anesthesia may be discussed and demonstrated to advantage. The scope of the specialty, including preoperative and postoperative patient evaluation; the values and shortcomings of modern anesthetic agents, the role of anesthesia in postsurgical morbidity; and the anesthesiologist as a consultant, can be emphasized. Even a brief exposure to the specialty should enable the student to understand the place of the anesthesiologist and anesthetic agents in patient management.