...one of the basic philosophies of medicine, something podiatry doesn't really share -- that every physician needs to know the basics of medicine because everything overlaps. A surgeon is still going to have patients with psych issues. The primary care doc is likely the first one to see a woman with OBGYN problems. Pediatricians are going to see kids that require surgery, or IM subspecialty work. Everything has a cross-over point. And so it's incredibly useful, if not mandatory, for everyone to have some background in each, even if it's only through med school rotations. And in fact almost all the competitive fields currently require a year of IM or surgery residency before you can enter those advanced programs, echoing the sentiment that you need to be an accomplished generalist before you can really be a competent specialist...
You don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but it appears from your forum name that you may be a non-trad career changer...
Out of curiousity,
how old are you, what stage of your training are you in, and are you considering specialties with considerable residency/fellowship length?
I agree that one must have an appreciation for as many other useful specialties and services as possible, but I'd contend that you have to draw the line somewhere. This is
especially true for surgical specialties IMO. The mind outlasts the body, and we've all see the over-the-hill surgeons in the twilight of their career. While their experience and clinical judgement may be immense, their fine motor skills and stamina simply are sometimes no longer there, and the patient may be much better served if the knife is in the hands of the resident. If you've had even a MS3 g-surg rotation, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about.
I know that surgical specialties have a surg intern year and not med, and some, such as ortho, cut to the chase (pun intended) almost from the start of the residency. Nonetheless,
is it really that crazy to suggest that it may be an idea to have surgical specialty schools? Focusing earlier on one's future area of specialization would help to offset the incredibly long training and guys who are 30+ years old coming out of their surgical fellowships (CT, vasc, specialized orthos, plastics, etc etc). That modest 30+ age for becoming an attending is even assuming they started med school at age 21 or 22yo, which is no longer the norm with the increasing numbers of US students entering MD programs after taking a year or more off to beef up their apps, completing MS programs, non-trad career changers, etc.
Again, just food for though....?
