Which is the repetitious surgical field?

[malusport]

I have a quick question about surgery. Which type of surgical speciality is the most repetitious.

For example, in ortho you do knee, spine, hip and shouler etc.

In cardio you do heart, heart and more heart......

Are there other specialities like cardio which you keep doing the same type of surgery over and over again so you become an expert in it.

Thanks

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[Dire Straits]

all of medicine is repetitive. internal med doctors do basically the same thing every day, family med doctors see basically the same type of patients in their offices everyday, cardiologists treat basically the same kind of diseases everyday, anesthesiologists go through basically the same motions everyday, you name it and every specialty and subspecialty is basically repetitive.

 

[imtiaz]

all of medicine is repetitive. internal med doctors do basically the same thing every day, family med doctors see basically the same type of patients in their offices everyday, cardiologists treat basically the same kind of diseases everyday, anesthesiologists go through basically the same motions everyday, you name it and every specialty and subspecialty is basically repetitive.

psychiatry is not repetetive. every psych patient presents with a different situation. i never saw two psych patients that i thought were the same.

 

[blu]

psychiatry is not repetetive. every psych patient presents with a different situation. i never saw two psych patients that i thought were the same.

Right ... psych is as repetitive (or as not repetitive) as any other field. I think it depends how you structure your career -- e.g., you could decide to do only hips and knees in ortho, or only CABGs in CT. However, no matter what field you choose, a small number of procedures will take up the vast majority of your workload. This is a fact of life because, well, common things happen commonly. In addition, skill is directly related to how many times you repeat something.

On the other hand, even the most restrictive fields aren't really repetitive per se. No two hernias are the same, no two hearts are the same, and no two patients are the same. It's like asking atheletes if what they do is repetitive. After all, a football player goes on the field and plays the same game every day.

How repetitive you perceive a field to be, however, is largely based on what floats your boat. Whereas one person may be excited about the nuances of every new hernia repair, another person may be bored after the first one. This is why surgeons say "ew, medicine, all they deal with is diabetes and hypertension, day after day." Medicine says "ew, surgeons, it's bowels and hernias, bowels and hernias."

blu

 

[Dire Straits]

psychiatry is not repetetive. every psych patient presents with a different situation. i never saw two psych patients that i thought were the same.

depends on how you define repetitious.

psych: listen to patient's problems, make sure they are not a risk to themselves or others, prescribe meds, schedule follow-up. repeat.