5 Responses to “Medical Specialties….?”

1. Pangolin Says:
   November 15th, 2010 at 1:42 am

   Your basic specialties are:

   Medicine – diagnosing illnesses, managing chronic diseases, writing prescriptions, giving advice that won’t be followed ("stop smoking and lose weight!"), referring to specialists/surgeons

   Medical subspecialties: cardiology (hearts), pulmonology (lungs), rheumatology (joints and connective tissue), endocrinology (hormones), gastroenterology (digestion), nephrology (kidneys), neurology (nervous system), dermatology (skin) and many more.

   Surgery – diagnosis and treatment of ailments that can be treated surgically. They perform operations, and manage patients before and after surgery.

   Surgical subspecialties – cardiothoracic (heart/lungs), neurosurgery (nervous system), orthopedic (bones, joints, musculoskeletal system), ENT (ear,nose, throat), ophthalmology (eyes), urology (urinary system), plastics (cosmetic and reconstructive), vascular (blood vessels), pediatric (babies and kids) and many more.

   Obstetrics and gynecology – both medical and surgical, treatment of female reproductive system, including pregnancy .
   Pediatrics – medical treatment of children

   Anesthesiology – peri-operative care of surgical patients. (we keep them alive while surgeons cut them up)

   Psychiatry – behavior and mental health

   Emergency Medicine – care of emergency and urgent medical problems.

   I’m probably forgetting a few, but that’s the bulk of them.

   JD is a medical resident. Turk is a surgical resident. I have no idea what House is – I can’t watch Hugh Laurie being serious and trying to talk American He is a great British comedic actor, and I prefer him in those roles!

   Family practitioners are supposed to have some surgical training, but they have only enough to be dangerous. You have to do a surgical residency to be any good at it.

2. Paul Ding Says:
   November 15th, 2010 at 1:42 am

   As a rule, you get paid more if your job looks unpleasant, or it requires talents/skills that most people don’t have.

   I once had emergency neurosurgery at 2 AM on Saturday morning of a holiday weekend. All surgery requires fine motor skills, but neurosurgery is especially demanding, so few doctors attempt to do it – and then you add handling emergencies into the mix, and neurosurgeons end up earning a nice income.

   Similarly, they don’t allow physicians to become urologists unless they have exceptionally large hands and fingers.

   A good part of the family practice doctor’s work is dealing with colds, flu shots, and other non-critical work. He orders tests, he writes routine prescriptions, he refers patients to specialists. Many doctors don’t have the people skills to do this well, but that doesn’t matter much; it’s something most doctors could do in a pinch, and consequently, their earnings are much lower.

   An internist is sorta like a family practitioner, except he deals only with adults, just as a pediatrician treats only children, a neonatologist treats only infants and a gerentologist treats only old people.

3. k_ya Says:
   November 15th, 2010 at 1:42 am

   as far as i know, family practitioner or general practitioner do have small surgery like cleaning injury wound. Also, they can be consulted when someone having problem about undergoing surgeon, healthy lifestyle, and so forth.. to make it easy, doctor is a person who can be consulted when it comes any problem about health.. at the same time, they can also be a problem resolver in family problem such as husband-wife relationship, parent-children relationship..
   as they are dealing with human, they must understand about human start from the physical till feelings of their patients
   It’s quite true that these group make less money WHEN COMPARED to the specialist like neurologist (doctor who is really understand about brain & nerves), cardiologist (doctor who is understand about heart & blood vessels) because specialist is doctor that really being consulted when general practioner cannot handle their patient’s problem due to their limited services..
   before becoming a doctor, a medical student is compulsary to recite the Hippocrate’s oath & the state oath.. there are statement that when a general practitioner have patient problem that reach beyond their extend of knowledge, it is a must to consult to the other doctors who knows about it.
   About the tv series ‘Scrubs’, JD & Turk are the coassistent, the level after becoming a medical student. At this level, they need to really practice what they had during medical study. They are doctors, but still under supervision.. JD works in Internal medicine part, which is dealing about diagnosis & treatment, while Turks works in Surgeon part, which deals more on ‘repairs human body’..

4. Pahd Says:
   November 15th, 2010 at 1:42 am

   Pangolin has a good answer for ya.

   As for House, I think he is the head of diagnostic medicine? (I have never met a doctor of diagnostic medicine though)

   For some reason I want to say House is boarded in both nephrology (kidney doc) and infectious disease.

5. W W D Says:
   November 15th, 2010 at 1:42 am

   Family practitioners do some minor procedures but in general not major surgery. They’re trained in vaginal deliveries and some in C-sections, but most do not incorporate obstetrics into their practice simply because they can’t afford the insurance.
   Internal medicine is the bulk of general medicine excluding obstetrics, pediatrics and surgery. House I think is supposed to be an internist. I can’t speak much to the TV shows (watching medical shows is too much like going to work) but TV tends to have the heroes doing things not in their specialty even if they have a defined specialty. You want your cast the same from week to week, and you want to have flexibility in your story lines. Also, they’re often about doctors in training, younger stars to play to TV demographics. I’d almost bet one of your other characters is in an old-fashioned rotating internship or an internal medicine residency, with changes should the writers want to put in an inconvenient surgical condition or some such.

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