Significant Roles of Anesthesiologists as Members of the Palliative Care Team in University Hospitals: Consultant-Type Involvement

Anesthesiologists play a very important role in palliative care medicine fields. They are also the members of the palliative care team in our hospital where we are responsible as a kind of consultant but are not involved in actual medical treatment as are attending physicians. We mainly contribute to pain control and maintenance of the general condition of patients. However, not that many anesthesiologists or pain clinicians are involved in palliative care of relevant patients, indicating that appropriate countermeasures are required to meet the demand stemming from the current shortage of manpowers. In our institute, electronic health records and closer cooperation with house staff and nurses positively participate in solving the above-stated issues. On the other hand, educating students and younger anesthesiologists about palliative care medicine has been proven to be very effective in their understanding of our responsibility through palliative care fields, besides the recognition of the specialization of our procedures and techniques in these patients. If a certain medical institution is suffering from inadequate manpower, it is conceivable that our Consultant-type involvement would play a role as one such valuable measure.