General Surgery?

[collegefreak12]

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I don't mean to be noobish, but I am, so w/e...My question is...what exactly is general surgery? Is it just a 5 year residency, like an intro to ANY surgery, then the people pick into which subspecialty they want (like neuro or ortho) and do additional residency in that? Or, is it something totaly different?

 

[Attila]

I don't mean to be noobish, but I am, so w/e...My question is...what exactly is general surgery? Is it just a 5 year residency, like an intro to ANY surgery, then the people pick into which subspecialty they want (like neuro or ortho) and do additional residency in that? Or, is it something totaly different?

It's something totaly different.

General surgery is the origional specialy of "Surgery" from which all the other subspecialties evolved and split off. Bacially it consists of GI surgery. It's not a prelude to other specialites although other specialties often do a year or two before starting their residency.

 

[toxic-megacolon]

Including surgical mangagement of the GI tract, General Surgery includes trauma, critical care, breast surgery, thyroid/parathyroid, simple vascular stuff, and soft tissue surgey over whole body.

General Surgeons are well respected among the surgical fields for "being able to operate almost anywhere in the body" and also for their ability to manage medically complicated patients as well.

 

[mamadoc]

I don't mean to be noobish, but I am, so w/e...My question is...what exactly is general surgery? Is it just a 5 year residency, like an intro to ANY surgery, then the people pick into which subspecialty they want (like neuro or ortho) and do additional residency in that? Or, is it something totaly different?

All of us were noobs at one point but ... you are basically asking people to do your homework for you. All your questions have been stuff that you can find out for yourself with a little work. You'll learn a lot if you take the time to do some searches here, or some Googling... and (this is a hint for learning in general btw) what you learn sticks with you a lot better when you've done the digging yourself.

Welcome to SDN!

 

[collegefreak12]

All of us were noobs at one point but ... you are basically asking people to do your homework for you. All your questions have been stuff that you can find out for yourself with a little work. You'll learn a lot if you take the time to do some searches here, or some Googling... and (this is a hint for learning in general btw) what you learn sticks with you a lot better when you've done the digging yourself.

Welcome to SDN!

Thanks...beleive me, I have tried places like google, but...it comes a bunch of junk articles, such as on SPECIFIC programs, like for residency for example. However, I don't really need to know the specific programs, yet, I need general info on the residencies. But I understand how this can be agitate some people. Sorry

 

[Tired]

All of us were noobs at one point but ... you are basically asking people to do your homework for you. All your questions have been stuff that you can find out for yourself with a little work. You'll learn a lot if you take the time to do some searches here, or some Googling... and (this is a hint for learning in general btw) what you learn sticks with you a lot better when you've done the digging yourself.

Well, in his defense, it can often be difficult to find the most basic information on the structure of residencies and specialties. I spent years thinking that you became an orthopod after doing a general surg residency, and I only learned last year what a D.O. was.

When you're not already hooked into the medical education pipeline, you don't know about books like Iserson. And as he points out, what you find on google or yahoo tends to assume that the reader already understands the difference between an "intern" and a "resident", or knows that Ortho and Neurosurg overlap in spinal surgery . . .

 

[collegefreak12]

When you're not already hooked into the medical education pipeline, you don't know about books like Iserson. And as he points out, what you find on google or yahoo tends to assume that the reader already understands the difference between an "intern" and a "resident", or knows that Ortho and Neurosurg overlap in spinal surgery . . .

Thanks. Well, actually, I knew both of those things, as they can easily be looked up in wikipedia. But, length or residencies, and different residency paths for different specialties is harder to look up.

 

[madcadaver]

Thanks. Well, actually, I knew both of those things, as they can easily be looked up in wikipedia. But, length or residencies, and different residency paths for different specialties is harder to look up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_surgery

General surgery
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

General surgery, despite its name, is a surgical specialty that focuses on surgical treatment of abdominal organs, e.g. intestines including esophagus, stomach, colon, liver, gallbladder and bile ducts, and often the thyroid gland (depending on the availability of head and neck surgery specialists) and hernias.

In Australia, Canada, the US and the UK, general surgeons are responsible for breast care, including the surgical treatment of breast cancer. In most other countries, breast care falls under Obstetrics and Gynecology and its sub-specialty of Mastology (or Senology).
....

To become a fully licenced general surgeon, one has to complete medical school (typically four years in North America) and a residency program in general surgery (typically five years in North America).

 

[Bitsy3221]

Most of my experience is in general surgery, so take this info with a grain of salt. People can correct this as needed. In general, the surgical arenas that you can apply to directly out of medical school are as follows:

General Surgery - 5 clinical years of surgical training in GI, hepatobiliary, pancreatic, thoracic, vascular, trauma, surgical oncology, pediatric, plastics, breast, endocrine (thyroid, parathyroid, adrenals, etc.), skin/soft tissue. Most programs (but not all) also include training in cardiac and transplant. Bear in mind that although you get exposure to all these areas during residency, upon completion of general surgery residency most (but not all) will predominantly do more "bread and butter" type cases in the GI, breast, skin/soft tissue arenas. Often, many academic programs will encourage or require an additional 1-2 years of lab time which is often done after the PGY2 or PGY3 years, bringing the total training time to 6 or 7 years.

Orthopaedic Surgery - generally 5 years in length, and the first year is usually a "preliminary" year of general surgery

Otolaryngology (ENT) - also generally 5 years in length, and the first year is usually "preliminary" year of general surgery

Urology - also generally 5 years in length, and the first 1-2 years is general surgery, depending on the program

Neurosurgery - generally 7 years total in length, the first year predominantly general surgery.

Ophthalmology - honestly, don't know much about it.

The other areas of surgery--Plastics, Vascular, Cardiothoracic, Non-Cardiac Thoracic, Endocrine, Pediatric, Trauma/Critical Care, Transplant, Surgical Oncology, Colorectal (I may be forgetting some) all require a fellowship after completion of a full 5-7 year general surgery residency. There are a few exceptions to this rule, namely:

Plastic Surgery - there are some integrated programs which will allow you to match into a plastic surgery residency, which will be about 1.5-3 years of general surgery followed by ~3 years of plastic surgery. If you want more info on this, I would suggest looking at the Plastics message boards.

Vascular Surgery - there are some programs that will also allow you to match into a program similarly structured to the Plastics programs that will train you in Vascular surgery.

Although the surgical fields have become increasingly more competitive, general surgery remains the "least" competitive as compaired to the other sub-specialties listed above. However (and without the intention to start another tired SDN war about who's-more-competitive-than-who) that still means there were more categorical general surgery applicants than there were spots in recent years.

Hope this helps some.

 

[collegefreak12]

Most of my experience is in general surgery, so take this info with a grain of salt. People can correct this as needed. In general, the surgical arenas that you can apply to directly out of medical school are as follows:

General Surgery - 5 clinical years of surgical training in GI, hepatobiliary, pancreatic, thoracic, vascular, trauma, surgical oncology, pediatric, plastics, breast, endocrine (thyroid, parathyroid, adrenals, etc.), skin/soft tissue. Most programs (but not all) also include training in cardiac and transplant. Bear in mind that although you get exposure to all these areas during residency, upon completion of general surgery residency most (but not all) will predominantly do more "bread and butter" type cases in the GI, breast, skin/soft tissue arenas. Often, many academic programs will encourage or require an additional 1-2 years of lab time which is often done after the PGY2 or PGY3 years, bringing the total training time to 6 or 7 years.

Orthopaedic Surgery - generally 5 years in length, and the first year is usually a "preliminary" year of general surgery

Otolaryngology (ENT) - also generally 5 years in length, and the first year is usually "preliminary" year of general surgery

Urology - also generally 5 years in length, and the first 1-2 years is general surgery, depending on the program

Neurosurgery - generally 7 years total in length, the first year predominantly general surgery.

Ophthalmology - honestly, don't know much about it.

The other areas of surgery--Plastics, Vascular, Cardiothoracic, Non-Cardiac Thoracic, Endocrine, Pediatric, Trauma/Critical Care, Transplant, Surgical Oncology, Colorectal (I may be forgetting some) all require a fellowship after completion of a full 5-7 year general surgery residency. There are a few exceptions to this rule, namely:

Plastic Surgery - there are some integrated programs which will allow you to match into a plastic surgery residency, which will be about 1.5-3 years of general surgery followed by ~3 years of plastic surgery. If you want more info on this, I would suggest looking at the Plastics message boards.

Vascular Surgery - there are some programs that will also allow you to match into a program similarly structured to the Plastics programs that will train you in Vascular surgery.

Although the surgical fields have become increasingly more competitive, general surgery remains the "least" competitive as compaired to the other sub-specialties listed above. However (and without the intention to start another tired SDN war about who's-more-competitive-than-who) that still means there were more categorical general surgery applicants than there were spots in recent years.

Hope this helps some.

Wow, that helps a lot, thanks. So really, while everyone was flaming me, I was correct in thinking that General Surgery was used as a prelude to other surgeries.

 

[fantasty]

Isn't there a graphic representation floating around that shows residency & fellowship lengths side-by-side? I think it's from Iserson, but I could have swore I say it online somewhere. (If so, I'm guessing it would have been on here or on the AAMC site, but I couldn't find it either place).

 

[toxic-megacolon]

was correct in thinking that General Surgery was used as a prelude to other surgeries.

To be technical general surgery INTERNSHIP is a prelude to other surgical subspecialties. General surgery RESIDENCY is its own specilized training program. Stick around these forums and you'll see there's a HUGE difference between "categorical" and "preliminary" positions. (Read the FAQs). Categorical GS is one of the most competitive specialties in medicine. Prelim GS is one of the least.

 

[deleted109597]

Wow, that helps a lot, thanks. So really, while everyone was flaming me, I was correct in thinking that General Surgery was used as a prelude to other surgeries.

You're half right. Yes, you must do GS before any other surgery, except for integrated plastics and ortho. However, you can still do only general surgery.
And seriously, they make books about this.

 

[collegefreak12]

You're half right. Yes, you must do GS before any other surgery, except for integrated plastics and ortho. However, you can still do only general surgery.
And seriously, they make books about this.

Ok, got it, thanks. But, why would I spend money on a book when I could find it all out online

 

[Tired]

Ok, got it, thanks. But, why would I spend money on a book when I could find it all out online

Because (to repeat myself for the third time in the last two days):

Major life decisions should not be made based on information found on an anonymous internet bulletic board.

 

[MDstudent79]

To add to the good post above about different routes to surgery, I know there are also now (as of the last couple years) at least two (maybe more) integrated thoracic surgery programs out there.