Guidelines to help evaluate anesthesiologists who desire to continue their careers in anesthesia
I. Return after appropriate treatment (for health care professionals)
- Accepts and understands disease of addiction
- Bonding with Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous (AA/NA) with active sponsorship
- Good relapse prevention skills
- Other psychiatric disorders in remission
- Healthy family relationships
- Balanced lifestyle
- Anesthesia department supportive
- Committed to five-year monitoring program
- Confident to be in operating room, administer anesthetic drugs and not relapse
- All of the above required for immediate return to anesthesia
II. Possible return, with reassessment after one or two years
- Incomplete bonding to AA/NA but improving
- Some denial / minimizing
- Lacks complete confidence to be in operating room and not relapse to chemical use
- Recovery skills improving
- Brief relapse may have occurred
- Other psychiatric disorders improving
- Dysfunctional family members improving (may require therapy)
- Healthy attraction to anesthesia
III. Never return to clinical anesthesiology (any of these conditions)
- Prolonged addiction history
- Significant relapse despite adequate treatment
- Lacks confidence to return to operating room and not self-administer anesthetic drugs
- Significant Axis I or II psychopathology
- Inability to follow treatment and monitoring contract
- Poor bonding to AA/NA and recovery skills
- Significant family pathology
Source: Excerpted from article by Eric B. Hedberg, MD, Associate Medical Director, Talbott Recovery Campus, Atlanta, in American Society of Anesthesiologists Newsletter/ copyright 2001 of the American Society of Anesthesiologists. A copy of the full text can be obtained from ASA, 520 N. Northwest Highway, Park Ridge, IL 60068-2573. Based on guidelines in Angres DH, Talbott GD, Bettinardi-Angres K. Healing the Healer: The Addicted Physician. Madison, CT: Psychosocial Press; 1998.
You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
- Award-winning Medical Content
- Latest Advances & Development in Medicine
- Unbiased Content