T H E H U MAN S O F M ED IC IN E
The Hidden World of Anesthesia AN ANESTHESIOLOGY RESIDENT EXPLAINS ALL
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Wri t t en by Ma ri a nna S eefel dt a n d Rachel To rregi a no
r. Nabil Othman is a fourthyear anesthesiology resident at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, C.A., who recently finished writing his first book, Vigilance: An Anesthesiologist’s Notes on Thriving in Uncertainty. He’ll be graduating from residency at the end of June before beginning a fellowship year in Houston, TX. Born in Chicago and raised in Michigan, a career in medicine piqued Dr. Nabil Othman’s interest at a young age. In middle school, Dr. Othman spent time helping his grandfather, who elected to manage his heart failure at home instead of pursuing invasive medical treatment. “He elected to have a 6 | 2 0 2 1 VO LU M E 2
nurse come to his house and help him during the day and I would help him out in the mornings, and I really enjoyed that,” said Othman. After finding joy and performing well in his science classes throughout school, Dr. Othman applied to medical programs and soon began to pursue his MD from Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit. He first began his career in medicine with an interest in trauma surgery, but realized his third year of medical school it was not what he was looking for. It wasn’t until his fourth year of medical school that everything clicked for Dr. Othman, when he spent a day with anesthesiologists. “I couldn’t do
a formal anesthesiology rotation until after the residency application deadline because I decided late,” said Othman. Although it was risky, he was confident in his backup plan to work in an Intensive Care Unit or critical care if he didn’t end up liking anesthesiology. “Critical care and anesthesia are so similar that the odds of liking both are very high,” said Othman. Now, in his last year of residency, anesthesiology has become both a career and passion for Dr. Othman. This is what drove him to write Vigilance: An Anesthesiologist’s Notes on Uncertainty. “In almost every other specialty, there’s tangible evidence of what they do, but with anesthesia, you don’t tan-
