How much diagnosing do surgeons do?

[treeAndrei]

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Two things draw me to medicine.

1. Surgery
2. Diagnosing why people are sick and prescribing treatment

To my understanding, surgeons never do the second and internists never do the first.

Am I incorrect in that assumption? Is there room for both in either profession? If a surgeon studies internal medicine while practicing surgery, is it possible for him to work as an internist as well?

Thank you for your responses.

 

[I'm No Superman]

Well, I'm probably the least qualified person here to answer this for you, but I'll give it a shot. From my shadowing experience (Ortho/Sports Med), the surgeons do diagnose breaks, ligament tears/strains, dislocations, and other related injuries. Technically, the patients are not "sick", but they are diagnosing/treating a physical problem.

As for your second question, I really don't know, but I would doubt that anyone does both surgery and internal med. The only person I've ever heard of doing both was on a fictional TV show.

 

[docB]

This can be a touchy subject that garners snarky responses from either side. Being neither let me see if I can answer this without a dog in the hunt.

Internists do not do "surgery" defined as taking people to the OR for major procedures. They do some procedures such as wound care, central lines, abscess I&Ds, etc. Many internists elect to stop doing these and do no procedural medicine.

Surgeons do diagnose and treat, particularly surgical diseases such as appendicitis and cholecystitis.

There really is not room to do both. If you train as an internist you will not be able to du surgeries. If you train as a surgeon you should not be managing chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension.

You will need to pick. You will not have to pick until third year of med school.

 

[Law2Doc]

Two things draw me to medicine.

1. Surgery
2. Diagnosing why people are sick and prescribing treatment

To my understanding, surgeons never do the second and internists never do the first.

Am I incorrect in that assumption? Is there room for both in either profession? If a surgeon studies internal medicine while practicing surgery, is it possible for him to work as an internist as well?

Thank you for your responses.

In general the flow in a hospital tends to often be like this: the ER doc has a patient in his ED. He orders the appropriate labs and imaging, examines the patient, and decides if this is someone he wants to admit or discharge. If he wants to admit the patient he basically has two choices, have the patient admitted to a surgical service or a medicine service. If the patient seems surgical, he orders a surgical consult. The surgeon examines the patient, looks at the studies/labs and either admits the patient, or tells the ED doc that this isnt a surgical case. If this happens, or if the ED doc decides on his own that this is a medicine case, the medical team gets consulted, and decides if this is a patient they will admit to their service. Once a team takes a patient onto their service, it's up to them to diagnose the patient, order the appropriate follow up studies etc. Surgeons often will consult medical specialties and vice versatile for patients on the service as well. As far as diagnosing, usually the ED doc has the first crack at at least getting into the right ballpark as to what service the patient should be admitted to. Once consulted, it's up to the service consulted to diagnose the patient. Surgeons often consult on and diagnose medical problems and vice versatile, and then it becomes a game as to whether you can "turf" that patient onto another teams service. In short, you are incorrect, both fields diagnose all the time. And both fields do procedures. However medical services don't perform "surgery". They may perform invasive sterile procedures, however.