Anesthesia providers handle 40 million cases a year, yet hospitals report shortages of these specialists in every metro area, a threat to emergency and maternal care and basic outpatient surgery.
Dr. Matthew Maloney | Guest Columnist | Anesthesiologist, a Fellow of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, and President of Clinical Operations at U.S. Anesthesia Partners, Inc.
Tennesseans may soon experience delays for medical procedures as routine as colonoscopies or as pressing as emergency heart surgeries. The problem isn’t a lack of surgeons but a shortage of anesthesia clinicians.
It’s the sleeper issue of American healthcare.
The one specialty every surgery depends on, and a troubling shortage
Anesthesiology is among the top five healthcare specialties with the most acute shortages, the 2025 Axuall Clinical Workforce Insights Report found. But unlike the other four — pathology, radiology, ophthalmology and urology — anesthesia care is required for every major and most minor surgeries.
Anesthesia providers administer roughly 40 million anesthetics in the U.S. annually and participate in more than 90 percent of surgeries. These range from procedures requiring general anesthesia, when the patient is unconscious, to conscious “twilight” sedation for minor surgeries. Regional and local anesthesia techniques are used as well, such as epidurals during childbirth.
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