Internal Med vs surgery?

[RU2003]

Anyone have any experience or thoughts about some good cases that can spark some debate between these two fields. Or questions to highlight differences between the two fields besides the obvious ones.

We are having a debate with internal med vs surgery and we want to highlight differences, present case(s) with some "fudge" areas with the two fields and Im looking for some advice or help with writing some of the questions so fuel a good debate between the two.

THanks

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[surg]

Not sure exactly what you are looking for, but here are a sampling of some topics that might make for good case scenarios that have medical and surgical interventions that have or had advocates for both sides:

Chronic GERD: Surgical therapy (e.g. Nissen fundoplication) v. Medical Therapy (e.g. chronic PPI use) v. Medical specialist therapy (e.g. Stretta procedure)

Asymptomatic Primary Hyperparathyroidism: Surgical therapy (parathyroidectomy) v. Medical therapy (calcium monitoring)

Multiple thyroid nodules: Surgical therapy (thyroidectomy) v. medical therapy (suppression with Synthroid) v. watchful waiting

Morbid obesity: surgical therapy (gastric bypass or gastric banding) v. medical therapy (diet, nutrition, Meridia?)

Coronary Artery Disease: surgical therapy (CABG) v. medical specialist therapy (percutaneous stenting)

Carotid Stenosis: surgical therapy (carotid endarterectomy) v. medical therapy (anti-platelet agent) v. other specialist (carotid stenting)

 

[Mumpu]

Look at critical care literature too. SICU's appear to be run on a very different set of literature from MICU's. Threshold for blood transfusions comes to mind, I'm sure there are many others.