What started as slight abdominal pain following an afternoon of shopping and picking up take-out dinner erupted into a full-blown emergency that left Valerie Bourret of Hingham deeply worried she would not survive.

After suffering for too long with severe hip pain, the 73-year old Weymouth resident chose Dr. Michael Ayers to perform her hip replacement surgery. “I liked him right away,” she said. “He really listened to me and always made great eye contact.”

Many patients have had some kind of experience with an anesthesiologist, but few realize the scope of the work done by these medical professionals.