Best combo of surgery with diagnostic physician work??

[miler]

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Hi, I just wanted to get people's opinions on what people who have an interest in surgery and medicine have done to try and be involved in both. Obviously you would have to do a surgery residency to practice as a surgeon, but are there any fellowships that that maximize the amount of medicine you get to do as well?
I've heard about some trauma surgeons who as part of their fellowship do a lot of critical care/icu work and end up moonlighting in the er...
Any other ideas of ways to do this or even thoughts on what the trauma surg people are doing? Just curious about people who have tried to do it all, and how it worked/didn't work for them.
Thanx for the thoughts..

 

[flop]

Gu

 

[Pilot Doc]

What you are looking for is a field that does not have a corresponding medical specialty. Cardiac is an excellent negative example of this. The cardiologists essentially use CT surgeons as a treatment modality like stents and lipitor. They take undiagnosed cardiac patients, diagnose them, treat them and decide when to refer for CABG or valve surgery.

The fields I would pick that allow substantial primary diagnosis & treatment are

ENT
GU
Breast
Vascular
Ortho
Trauma

 

[34440]

Ophtho

 

[johnny_blaze]

obs + gyne

 

[geekgirl]

transplant.
not a lot of diagnosis, but lots and lots of medicine.

 

[njbmd]

Hi there,
I would agree with Transplant Surgery. You will be up to your eyeballs doing diagnostic work long after the actual surgery. Any transplant patient who get admitted to the hospital automatically goes on the transplant surgery service for life.

njbmd 🙂

 

[tussy]

I'd at surgical endocrinology as another example. Thyroids, parathyroids, adrenals, pheos, etc. Some let the endocrinologists do the workup, but i know a lot that do all the medicine workup themselves. Gen surg if you work somewhere smaller that doesn't have a lot of medical subspecialists end up doing a lot of GI medicine too. ICU is good medicine and a lot of surgeons do that. Any surg onc has lots of medicine too.

To stay away from: Cardiac, ortho, plastics

 

[supercut]

Hi there,
I would agree with Transplant Surgery. You will be up to your eyeballs doing diagnostic work long after the actual surgery. Any transplant patient who get admitted to the hospital automatically goes on the transplant surgery service for life.

njbmd 🙂

Generally true....although there are some programs with excellent medicine support. Example - Vandy. All livers stay on the hepatology service until day of surgery, are followed by transplant for 90 days post-op, then if there are no surgical issues, go back to hepatology for any complications/admissons (even bile duct strictures are stented by ERCP and only go to surgery if that fails!) I did an elective on the transplant service at Vandy in medical school and had an awesome time! (Vs the painful experience transplant is at my current program)

 

[Menateach Rosh]

what about neurosurgery?

 

[Misterioso]

General surgery residency + Critical care fellowship

Makes you a trauma surgeon--and from what people have been saying they spend as much time (if not more) in the ICU managing medical problems than they do in the OR operating.