Perceived Image of Anesthesiologists

Anesthetists or Anesthesiologists are thought to be the doctors behind the masks who puts you to sleep before the surgery and wakes you up when its done. But what do they do between these two events? Are all those jokes about them being lazy, dozing off or spilling coffee on their OT dress true? Anesthesiology is more than just putting you to sleep and waking you up. They care for breathing, brain, circulation, kidneys and other important bodily functions of the patient and provide with emergency resuscitation measures to save the patient's life when needed during the surgery. After surgery, they take care for the pain needs of the patients.