--- name: anesthesiology description: Use when targeting Anesthesiology or deciding whether an anesthesiology, perioperative-medicine, pain, or critical-care study fits this venue. Encodes the journal's fit, the perioperative-trial and translational bar, reporting-guideline and registration requirements, ASA house style, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics. Venue-fit aid only, not clinical advice. --- # Anesthesiology (anesthesiology) ## Journal positioning Anesthesiology is the flagship journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), publishing clinical and translational research across **anesthesiology, perioperative medicine, pain medicine, and critical care** — anesthetic pharmacology and mechanism, perioperative outcomes, patient safety, regional and pain management, and peri-operative organ protection. Its defining expectation is a **rigorous, clinically meaningful advance in perioperative or anesthetic care, or a mechanistic insight into anesthetic action and perioperative physiology**, not an underpowered single-center trial, a descriptive case series, or a basic experiment with no perioperative anchor. The journal places strong emphasis on **rigorous perioperative-trial reporting** — prespecified outcomes, registration, and analysis matched to design. This skill is a **fit / venue-selection / re-framing** aid; it is not clinical or regulatory advice and does not replace the journal's current instructions for authors. Before submitting, re-check the live Anesthesiology author instructions. ## When to trigger - The author names Anesthesiology for an anesthesiology, perioperative, pain, or anesthesia-related critical-care study and wants a fit/framing check. - A perioperative study must be re-framed around a patient-centered perioperative outcome or an anesthetic-mechanism question. - The author is choosing between Anesthesiology, a surgical journal, and a critical-care or pain-specialty venue. - The author needs the journal's perioperative-trial reporting, registration, and translational-study expectations. ## Scope & topic fit - Perioperative clinical trials and outcomes: anesthetic technique, hemodynamic management, and postoperative complications/mortality. - Anesthetic pharmacology and mechanism: drug action, depth-of-anesthesia, and neurophysiology of consciousness and analgesia. - Patient safety, monitoring, and quality in the perioperative period. - Regional anesthesia, acute and chronic pain medicine, and analgesic outcome studies. - Perioperative organ protection and critical care related to surgery and anesthesia. - Translational and animal studies of anesthetic mechanism, neurotoxicity, or organ injury with perioperative relevance. ## Method & evidence bar - Perioperative trials must be adequately powered with prespecified, patient-centered outcomes; trials require prospective registration and the registration number, with protocol/SAP and analysis matched to design. - The applicable reporting guideline and checklist are expected: CONSORT for trials, STROBE for observational work, PRISMA for systematic reviews, ARRIVE for animal studies. - Composite and surrogate perioperative endpoints need justification; multiplicity and subgroup analyses must be prespecified and handled appropriately. - Observational perioperative analyses must address confounding by indication, selection and immortal-time bias, and missing data; causal language must match the design. - Translational/animal anesthetic studies need controls, blinding/randomization, replication, and dosing/model validation anchored to perioperative relevance. - Effect estimates need confidence intervals and absolute as well as relative measures. ## Structure & house style - ASA format with a structured abstract and an editor's/clinical-context or "what we know / what this adds" statement; re-check current article types (Clinical Science, Perioperative Medicine, etc.) and limits on the live guide. - The introduction frames the perioperative or mechanistic gap; the discussion states the perioperative-care implication and bounds overreach. - A CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA flow diagram is expected for the relevant design; animal work reports ARRIVE-aligned detail. - Tables/figures follow the journal's statistical-reporting standards; a supplement carries the protocol/SAP, full statistical methods, and additional analyses. ## Official-submission checklist - Before giving submission-ready advice, read `../../resources/source-basis.md` and `../../resources/official-source-map.md`; start from the ICMJE/EQUATOR and ASA anchors, then cite the current Anesthesiology page you checked. - Search the live site for "Anesthesiology ASA instructions for authors" and follow the current version. - Re-check article types, abstract and clinical-context format, and word/figure/reference limits. - Confirm trial registration, the reporting checklist (CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA/ARRIVE), data/code-availability, and protocol/SAP submission with prespecified analysis. - Re-check IRB/ethics and consent, animal-care/IACUC approval, ICMJE authorship and conflict-of-interest disclosure, funding, and AI-use disclosure. - If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win. ## Pre-submission self-check - [ ] The study delivers a clinically meaningful perioperative advance or an anesthetic-mechanism insight. - [ ] Perioperative outcomes are prespecified and powered; trials are registered with the number and SAP. - [ ] The correct reporting checklist (CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA/ARRIVE) is completed and attached. - [ ] Multiplicity, subgroups, and composite/surrogate endpoints are prespecified and justified. - [ ] Observational analyses address confounding by indication and immortal-time/selection bias. - [ ] IRB/consent, IACUC (if animal), ICMJE disclosures, and a data-availability statement are prepared. ## Common desk-reject triggers - Underpowered single-center perioperative trial with no prespecified analysis or registration. - Observational analyses with confounding by indication and overstated causal claims. - Surrogate/depth-of-anesthesia endpoints presented as clinically definitive without patient outcomes. - Missing trial registration, protocol/SAP, or the required reporting checklist. - Pure surgical-technique or pure basic-neuroscience work with no perioperative/anesthetic anchor. ## Re-routing decision - Surgical technique or operative outcome is the primary contribution → `jama-surgery`. - Anesthesia-related ICU/organ-support dominant over perioperative care → `critical-care-medicine`. - Respiratory/ventilation mechanism dominant → `american-journal-of-respiratory-and-critical-care-medicine`. - Obstetric anesthesia centered on maternal/fetal outcomes → `american-journal-of-obstetrics-and-gynecology`. - Broad practice-changing perioperative trial → general medicine (`jama` / NEJM / The Lancet in the natural-science bundle). ## Output format ```text [Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason) [Target] Anesthesiology (ASA) [Specialty tags] [Study design / reporting guideline] [Method/evidence] [Top risk] [Official items to re-check]
[Re-route suggestion] ```