Hi everyone, my name is Jamie and thanks for checking out my channel!
If you’re new, I am currently a 4th year medical student and I’m about to start my
residency in emergency medicine.
Now that all my classmates have matched into their specialty of choice, I thought now would
be a good time to talk about different kinds of doctors.
Now, there are a TON of different specialties but I’m going to discuss 10 most common
specialties in no particular order.
So let’s get started.
Family Medicine Family medicine is a specialty devoted to
health care of people of all ages.
So they can take care of the whole family from a child to the elderly.
When you’re going to your doctor for regular check-ups you’re most likely seeing a family
medicine doctor.
They can do your yearly physical examss, do routine labs, give you vaccinations, and take
care of routine healthcare issues like high blood pressure and diabetes.Family medicine
doctors have Long term relationship with their patients.
The residency length is 3 years.
Internal Medicine Internal medicine is similar to family medicine
but they (generally) focus on patients that are 18 years and older.
Just like family medicine the breadth of what you have to know is very wide.
One of the main differences between family medicine and internal medicine is you have
access to more fellowships after your residency.
An internal medicine residency is 3 years long and once you’re done with your residency
you have the option of pursuing further training called fellowships.
These fellowships include cardiology, hematology/Oncology, gastroenterology, infectious diseases, etc,
Pediatrics Pediatrics is similar to internal medicine
but the main difference is that pediatricians deal with infants, children and adolescents.You
have to know A LOT.
Children’s physiology and healthcare needs are different than adults so in simple terms,
you can think of pediatrics as an internal medicine for children.
And just like internal medicine you can further specialize in Pediatric cardio, ped hematology-oncology,
pediatric gastroenterology, etc.
Emergency Medicine Emergency Medicine is what I’m going into.
Emergency medicine physicians are responsible for patients that come into the emergency
department for whatever reason.
We see a lot of different kinds of patients but our true specialty is in Resuscitation
and stabilization of very sick patients In emergency medicine, you see a lot of life
threatening conditions like heart attacks, strokes, or car accidents, but you also see
a lot of simple complaints like the flu, lacerations or cuts, and belly pain.
Anesthesiology Anesthesiologist are doctors that are trained
to administer anesthesia during a surgical procedure.
Responsible for managing and treating critical life functions--breathing, heart rate and
blood pressure while a patient is going through surgery.
Also do a lot of procedures including central lines, transesophageal ECHOs, and epidurals.
After a residency in anesthesiology, you can further pursue fellowship into cardiothoracic
anesthesiology, pain medicine, or critical care
Ob-gyn Ob-gyn deals with obstetrics and gynecology.
Obstetrics--is a field of medicine that deals with pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum
period, and fertility Gynecology deals with the female reproductive system and can deal
with issues like the menstrual cycle, infections, gynecologic cancers, and more
General Surgery General Surgery is a medical specialty that
uses surgical procedures to treat patients.
The surgeries can include things like cancer resections, transplant surgeries, cosmetic
surgeries, and open heart surgeries.
To give it a little bit of a cultural context, the main characters that you see in Grey’s
anatomy are surgical residents who then go onto become attending physicians in different
surgical specialties.
So speaking of surgical specialties, there are further specializations within surgery
that you can pursue after completing a general surgery residency.
These include trauma surgery, colorectal surgery, cardiothoracic, etc There are also surgical
specialty residencies you can directly go into without having to complete a general
surgery residency such orthopedic surgery, plastic surgery, urology, vascular surgery,
neurosurgery, and more.
Psychiatry Psychiatrists are doctors that treat and diagnose
mental, emotional and behavioral disorders Some of the more common conditions treated
by psychiatrists includes panic disorders, depression and other mood disorders, and schizophrenia.
After a residency in psychiatry, you can further specialize in: addiction psychiatry, forensic
psychiatry, and child & adolescent psychiatry
Diagnostic Radiology Radiologists are doctors that diagnose and
treat conditions using a wide variety of techniques like x-rays, CT scans and MRIs.
They use these imaging techniques to diagnose everything from broken bones to serious heart
conditions and they work with doctors in other specialities to give information on how to
interpret images from different modalities.
Dermatology Dermatologist are doctors that treat the skin,
nails, hair and the mucous membranes.
So that means, they treat a wide range of diseases like eczema, acne, psoriasis, skin
cancer and many more.
They can also cosmetic procedures like botox and laser treatments.
There are SO many more interesting specialities that I didn’t mention, like interventional
radiology, PM&R, pathology, ENT, and more.
If you want to educate other viewers about the specialty that you’re interested in,
please comment down below.
I’d love to read about it.
I hope this video was informative and helpful.
I will see you guys in
the next video!
BYEEE!