Had a minor op before Christmas (for a deviated septum - I'm no longer deviant, ha ha!) and one of the multitude of people who arrived with a clipboard to ask me all the same questions others of the multitude had asked before her, was someone who said she would be assisting the "anaesthesiologist." I asked her what the difference was between an anaesthesiologist and an anaesthetist, and she said in Canada, they're the same thing; in the States, the former is the main person administering the anaesthetic and the latter is a kind of assistant (at least, to the best of my recollection, that was her answer. I'm a bit muzzy about the conversation, post-op).

Well, I looked up both in the Cdn Oxford and only found anaesthetist and anaesthesiology - no "anaesthesiologist," which shored up my opinion that this latter is just a syllable-expensive way of saying anaesthetist - kinda like asking for an "expiration" date instead of an "expiry" date.

Anyone else come across this dichotomy/have an explanation for it? What do y'all use in the States, in Britland, in Eire, in the Antipodes, and elsewhere?

Dear MG: Many people with a reasonable amount of instruction used to give anesthesia, as I
used to. But most hospitals allow only those physicians certified by the Americal Board of
Anesthesiology to do so now. I was an anesthetist for giving EST, but would never have had
the gall to call myself an anesthesiologist.

Precisely so. An anesthesiologist is a physician with special training in the administration of anesthesia,and all that that entails. He or she may well work in a department with less-trained people who do similar things, but without as much responsibility, remuneration of course, and also [supposedly] knowledge of other disease states that may have an impact on the case (i.e. pre-operative assessment), or the ability to recogize things that are going wrong as quickly. In the US many hospitals employ Nurse Anesthetists, sometimes more than physician anesthesiologists.

There is an analogous distinction between optometrists and ophthalmologists: same field, do much of the same work, difference in length and intensity of training, less broad experience. They will discourse at some length whether the job they do is sufficiently worse as to merit the wage differential. Only the physicians are licensed to give prescribe or dispense medications, another sore point.

Similarly with psychologists and psychiatrists here.