combine surgery and medicine?

[clc26]

one speciality ppl havent mentioned regarding a mixture of medicine and sugery: cardiology!

its a medicine based speciality but are pushing the cardiothoracic surgeons out of a lot of work cos they are doing more and more minimally invasive stuff.
so if you want to be a physician plus do operations such as angioplasty (widenening arteries), valvuloplasty (widenening valves), replcement of valves, putting in pacemakers and defibrillators, ablating abberant pathways in the heart that cause arrhythmias, then choose cardiology!!

[sai7608]

hmmm cardiology, always was interested in cardiothoracics due to personal reasons, deffinately something to explore when/if i get to medschool!

so how do the current 4/final year medics view the medical training post graduation? any chance of it stablising before 2013/14? I guess it will largely depend on the political party that is in power in the coming years, but im guessing medical professionals maybe able to influence its directions?

[Dr Noodle]

Originally Posted by clc26

one speciality ppl havent mentioned regarding a mixture of medicine and sugery: cardiology!

its a medicine based speciality but are pushing the cardiothoracic surgeons out of a lot of work cos they are doing more and more minimally invasive stuff.
so if you want to be a physician plus do operations such as angioplasty (widenening arteries), valvuloplasty (widenening valves), replcement of valves, putting in pacemakers and defibrillators, ablating abberant pathways in the heart that cause arrhythmias, then choose cardiology!!

Don't encourage them, it's competitive enough as it is!

Originally Posted by sai7608

hmmm cardiology, always was interested in cardiothoracics due to personal reasons, deffinately something to explore when/if i get to medschool!

so how do the current 4/final year medics view the medical training post graduation? any chance of it stablising before 2013/14? I guess it will largely depend on the political party that is in power in the coming years, but im guessing medical professionals maybe able to influence its directions?

The CT is the surgical side, cardiology the medical side (sorry if you know this already, just seems like you may be mixing them up).

[sai7608]

Oh yeah, i did know CT was surgical and Cardiology is medical. Its interesting how a whole career can be focused on one (either surgical or medical) and not both, when essentialialy its the study of the same area?

Why is cardiology so competitive? manily because its so glamourised on TV? or is it that the hearts not too bad to learn about?

[belis]

Why is cardiology so competitive? manily because its so glamourised on TV? or is it that the hearts not too bad to learn about?

Becouse of posibilities of very lucrative private practice?

[Dr Noodle]

Can't remember if cardiac disease is the number one killer in the UK but it's up there anyway. Plenty of work in private practice.

There are so many treatments of the heart- my simple understanding of it is (when patient has blocked heart vessel for example)...cardiologist sees patient, investigates with angiogram, perhaps attempts angioplasty and if that doesn't work consults with CT surgeon who might then do a CABG. Surgeon cracks the chest open (well that seems to be changing too in the US but anyway) and operates on the heart that way with patient under general anaesthetic and cardiologist operates on heart through tiny little holes looking at a screen with patient awake.

Sorry if I've got any of that wrong, those are just bits I've picked up at work.

[Dr Noodle]

Originally Posted by sai7608

Why is cardiology so competitive? manily because its so glamourised on TV? or is it that the hearts not too bad to learn about?

Someone said to me once that it's quite straightforward which is why it's so popular. Dunno if that's actually the reason, the heart is pretty cool itself.

[clc26]

yes nadia you got that all right.
and i know i shouldnt be advertising cardiology!! it is very competitive requiring further degrees etc if u want to progress.
dont know why its so popular, guess its cos its the heart and thats important. theres none of that namby pamby stuff u get with gastroenterology e.g. irritable bowel syndrome (u wudnt believe how many patients the GP refers!!)

[JDavy]

When I was on work experience with the radiologists, I saw them and thats a medical specialty but they had interventional radiologists, who performed angio amongst other things (which i didnt get to see =( ) I don't think anyone has mentioned this?

[sai7608]

Originally Posted by clc26

it is very competitive requiring further degrees etc if u want to progress.

Further degreeS? Im about to get one in biomed, then hopefully medicine and then i have to get anotherone? Well i would have thought that would be enough to put some people off! lol

And yeah the heart is pretty straight forward to learn, the diseases arent too bad to remember either (i got a whole module on cardiovascular diseases next semester) and the treatments sound pretty straightforward.

BTW theres really good research going on with stem-cells and the heart at the mo, and in the future i feel, stem cells will play a big part in alot of medicine!

feel free to correct me if im wrong!