Anesthesiology and pain management are two unique but related medical practices. Both in and outside of the operating room, physicians in both practices are focused on delivering the best care for the patient, whether that looks like alleviating pain or managing their vitals during and after critical surgeries. Anesthesiologists, in particular, are critically important members of any operating room team, serving as leaders and key decision-makers during patients’ most vulnerable moments. Few understand this role as well as Dr. Anas Rahim.
Dr. Anas Rahim D.O. has dedicated his career to alleviating the suffering of his patients and giving them the opportunity to live healthier, pain-free lives. Dr. Rahim’s career includes years practicing as both an anesthesiologist and a pain management specialist, and he’s recently switched back to practicing anesthesiology full-time. This role brings unique challenges and leadership opportunities that leverage the skills Dr. Rahim built up in his years of service as both a community leader and physician.
A History Of Service
Dr. Anas Rahim has learned from a broad array of experiences over the course of his academic and medical career, with a history of service going all the way back to his high school days. Inspired by his parents and driven by a family ethic of service, he served as the community service chairman for Gulf Coast State College in his senior year of high school. He worked with local leaders on a number of community service projects, including Adopt a Highway program and Habitat for Humanity projects.
After earning his Food Science and Human Nutrition undergraduate degree from the University of Florida in 2012, he returned to his community by serving on the board of Project Downtown, a community service organization based on Muslim values that provided community meals for the homeless every week. He served as Treasurer, and in his time, they became the first chapter of the organization to be listed as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, letting them expand their operations to help homeless people with job interviews, preparation, and placement.
“It’s not hard to be a reasonable human being,” says Dr. Rahim. “Every day, wake up and try to do something that leaves the world a more positive place.”
From The Classroom To The Emergency Room And Back
After his first year of medical school in West Virginia in 2014, Anas Rahim went on a medical mission trip to Syria, which was still suffering from the Syrian Civil War that started two years prior. Thinking back to that time, Dr. Rahim says, “As the news continued to pour in of innocents being killed, I wanted to go back to the country my parents immigrated from and help those in need.” It was a formative decision that affected the rest of Rahim’s medical study and career. He spent a week in the emergency room of a recently bombed hospital, working alongside an anesthesiologist as civilian patients flooded in after every sunset, lending what assistance he could in both the emergency room and with patient resuscitation in the operating room.
“The ability to quickly manage patients’ pains and keep them safe during surgery spoke to me, and ultimately pursued anesthesia as a career after that experience,” Dr. Anas Rahim says.
After that experience overseas, anesthesiology and pain management became target areas of study for Dr. Rahim. He started his residency in anesthesiology at the University of Florida in 2017, returning to his collegiate roots to bring his educational journey full circle. After graduating, he spent an additional year training and learning to work as a full-time pain management physician in Miami, all while working weekend on-call shifts as an anesthesiologist at a hospital affiliated with his clinic.
“Medicine has become hyper-specialized, which is nice because it allows for continuous repetition of concepts that allow you to truly perfect your craft,” explains Dr. Rahim.
Leadership In The Operating Room And Beyond
In his return to full-time anesthesiology practice, Dr. Rahim has embraced the leadership and decisiveness required of his position. As the physician directly responsible for not just the patient’s levels of pain, but for monitoring their vital signs and keeping them safe and functional during surgery, he has to be able to quickly identify problems and act decisively in tense situations.
“When a patient is under anesthesia, the anesthesiologist is expected to make life-saving decisions quickly and clearly,” Dr. Rahim explains. “You do what you need to do right then and there to take the best care of the patient possible.”
No operating room is a truly solo operation; from the surgeon to the assistants to the anesthesiologist, every operation requires the care team to work in concert in order to ensure the best outcomes for the patient. In Dr. Rahim’s years of practice, he’s learned that the most important quality for a physician—and a leader—to possess or embody is clear communication. In the operating room, where the health of another human being is at stake, it’s critically important that his instructions to assistants and other members of the care team are clear, comprehensible, and actionable.
“The surgeon and anesthesiologist need their techs, nurses, sanitation team, and patient care assistants to do their job well and keep the OR running efficiently and smoothly,” Dr. Rahim says. “There’s a profound amount of teamwork involved, and it takes a village to do it well.”
This prioritization on clear communication extends outside the operating room as well. As both an anesthesiologist and a pain management expert, Dr. Rahim knows how important it is to build trusting relationships with both his peers and his patients. These relationships are built on trust earned through empathy—something Dr. Rahim has observed to be less common than it should be.
“The field of pain management can often involve caring for disgruntled patients, and there’s a specific stigma in medicine regarding this patient population as well,” he explains. “However, if you sit back and think about it, if someone has been in chronic pain for several months, it’s not as easy to wake up and put on a smile every day. Be there for people in the same way you’d want them to be there for you. No one is immune from a hard time.”
