General Surgery – Does this Broad Speciality requires Reincarnation?

Abstract

Independent India is 75 years old and much has changed for good in the medical field of diagnostics and therapeutics. India has also become 2nd most populous country in the world thereby causing an enormous increase in the demand for qualified physicians and surgeons of various specialties.
Like any other broad specialty, General Surgery forms the backbone of surgical training of so-called super specialties aka sub-specialties in the western world. In a country like India, we need more broad specialists. This branch has changed so much in the last decade that present-day general surgery has become increasingly fragmented into subspecialties and diseases previously treated by general surgeons are now managed by “specialists”.1 The majority of the residents graduating in surgery no longer want to stay as general surgeons because of the creation of these subspecialties. Also, as they are exposed to such organ/organ system-based care, they opt for one as the carrier in the future. Studies also prove that Mentored surgical residency graduates were likely to enter the same specialty and practice type as their mentor.2 Besides this, there is an indirect push from the government and public alike to seek advice from super specialists for minor ailments that can easily be dealt with by the broad specialists.