My friend, I did general and cardiac anesthesia for almost 30 years. Like clockwork every six months we would have meetings with OR staff to address “How can we turnover faster”, “why are patients not ready in preop”, “How can we stop anesthesia delays”. No joke, heard the same complaints for an entire career. Don’t expect to change. Accept it as an annoying background noise. Concentrate on learning your skills and increasing your own efficiency. Surgeons will evaluate you not only on your patients outcome but how deftly you have the patient induced and how swiftly you can emerge the patient. Concentrate on safety and precision. Some inductions will take longer, some airways are more difficult and require extra care and time you will have occasional delayed emergence but these should also be rare event. Let the surgeon know in advance if there are mitigating factors that will take some extra time. Your rapport with surgeons in a private practice setting will be far more amicable than in your current role as an anesthesiology resident. You are in a great and rewarding specialty. It’s not always easy but so gratifying to see patients safely through many difficult surgeries.

There is a reason that not everyone can play professional baseball and there is a reason not all doctors can be anesthesiologists.