1-Which sub speciality demands diagnostic skills the most?
2- Which is the most cerebral sub speciality?

Thanks for your answers. :thumbup:

These are two difficult questions to answer and I'll tell you right now - you will not find a uniform answer. Every subspecialty requires physicians who are excellent diagnosticians - they are after all, subspecialists. The reason you consult, or bring a subspecialist on board, is to gain from their skills and knowledge as an expert diagnostician within their field. You cannot say that one subspecialist is better than another; for every amazing cardiologist, there is an amazing rheumatologist.
Which subspecialty is the most cerebral? Again, there is no single best. The sky is the limit when it comes to the subspecialties and you can go as deep as your career allows within each individual subspecialty.

This is very true. Every subspecialty has its own unique cognitive challenges associated with it.

You know, if I'm going to get deep and philosophical I would say that being a general internist, or a family practitioner, actually requires the best diagnostic skills. I'm not kidding about that. They don't have to know 100% how to treat everything, but for them being able to diagnose stuff is so important,and nobody really does it like a good, old school fp or IM doctor. They are just a dying breed.

I would say that among IM specialties, the renal docs have a rep for being cerebral...they are the straight A student,pocket full of pens guys. Besides, figuring out all those electrolyte disorders and weird glomerulonephritisis is HARD. Rheumatologists also tend to be somewhat cerebral, but in actuality IMHO they don't really have as many different diseases, etc. that they have to treat, and there only seem to be about 10 drugs that treat everything rheumatological anyway (prednisone, cyclosporine, hydroxychloroquine and a few more!). GI and Cards have a lot of high IQ folks right now because it's hard to get in to those particular fellowships....