Somehow podiatry came up ( I have no background in medicine) and I was wondering why in the world are feet doctors a specialty compared to a general surgeon or someone that might fix a broken arm or hand issues?
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Amazingly, almost everything is a different specialty in medicine nowadays:)
– using your examples- an emergency room doctor or a rural family doctor might cast your broken arm in a pinch, but in most cases nowadays this would be handled by an orthopedic doctor. Orthopedic surgeons have specialties as well- shoulders, hands, knees, hips, etc. In fact, its so specialized that there are un-funny ancient jokes about how “I only deal with the left shoulder”
We have specialists for the head and neck region (head and neck surgeons), the brain and spinal cord (neurosurgeons), ear doctors (otologists), the thyroid and parathyroid glands (endocrine surgeons), individual joints and limbs (orthopedic specialties), the blood vessels (vascular surgeons), breast surgeons (both breast cancer surgeons and reconsructive surgeons), the abdominal and pelvic stuff (specialist colorectal surgeons, gynecologic surgeons of different specializations, surgical oncologists), skin cancer surgeons, burn specialists, dermatologists, hand surgeons (plastic surgeons and orthopedic surgeons specializing in hand), and foot doctors (podiatrists)… basically the more complex the organ, the more likely it is to have a dedicated specialist, but everything is a specialty now.
It turns out that when people do the same kinds of surgery and procedures over and over and over again they have better success rates than if they do a bunch of different things every day. So the era of the general surgeon who did a C-section, a tracheostomy, a carpal tunnel surgery and then an appendectomy in a day is mostly over, except in isolated communities that don’t have good specialty care access. It’s generally better care if that surgeon instead focuses on one thing and becomes extremely skilled and educated and practiced at that one area.
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