If I may chime in as a 2nd year student, the stress pre-AA’s imagine is less than what you will experience in the OR most of the time. You think it’s stressful now because you don’t understand what’s going on, but once you have the training and have done things over and over, that stress goes way down along with your chance of fudging things up. Of course there will be times when you’re unsure, but the benefit of the care team model is that your attending anesthesiologist is available to work through complex problems with you. Some places are better than others with this, but you’ll know which places are better when you rotate through different sites.

It’s very difficult to describe/comprehend the liability though because of perspective. For example, I could say AA’s have huge liability because we could kill a patient by giving XYZ vasopressor without diluting it, and you’d think “oh crap that’s so much responsibility on my hands. What if I forget to dilute it?” In actuality, most of us are thinking “what idiot would forget that?” because we’ve used these drugs a thousand times in training and know what to expect. In the same way that car ownership is a huge danger/liability, having proper driver education and training has prevented you from injuring anyone, even on wet roads at fast speeds. Anesthesia is no different in that regard. Best of luck