if you want to be a neonatal surgeon and an obstetrician?

Question

if you want to work at a small hospital that has about one main person in each field of surgery, you can be both an obstetrician and a neonatal surgeon. my question is, would you do your residency to become a pediatrician? and also i would think that you would have to do a fellowship for both of them but could you complete your fellowship as a neonatal surgeon and right then start one as an obstetrician?

Answer 1

Unfortunately, you can't really do what you're talking about. Neonatal surgery is performed by pediatric surgeons. Pediatric surgeons are trained for at least 5 years in a surgical residency followed by about another 3 years in pediatric surgery. Pediatric surgical fellowships are highly competitive, and although only top performers can enter surgical training, only top performers in highly academic surgical training programs can typically enter into pediatric surgical fellowships. It's *THAT* competitive!

Obstetricians are trained in a completely different manner. Obstetrics/Gynecology is its own subspecialty. Interested medical students gain experience in their medical schools, and if they are interested enough in this field, they undergo an OB/GYN residency. OB/GYN has its own areas of subspecialty like general surgery, but the scope of practice is related to women's reproductive organ systems in health and disease. OB/GYN's do not operate on babies, and they do not operate on women for problems unrelated to the uterus, ovaries, or pelvic anatomy. When a pregnant woman needs emergency surgery for something other than the pregancy (such as appendicitis, bowel obstruction, cholecysitis, etc...) the surgery is NOT performed by an OB/GYN, it is performed by a general surgeon.

Pediatricians do not perform surgery. Pediatrics is a field of medicine involving the health maintenance, disease prevention and disease treatment of children. Pediatricians subspecialize into a number of fields that take care of specific kinds of complex problems that kids can get into, like cancers, resipiratory diseases, gastrointestinal problems, etc. All of these subspecialties of pediatrics involve managing problems using medication. If a pediatrician believes that their patient needs surgery, they refer their patient to a pediatric surgeon.

Even in very small hospitals that are very far from major cities, doctors are limited to practice within the scope of their training. Although there are a few "general practitioners" out there that still do appendectomies and deliver babies by cesarian section as needed, these types of doctors are almost gone. The reason for this isn't that the need has gone away! Instead, it has become almost impossible to offer adequate training in such different fields as medicine and surgery that someone could be trusted to practice both safely. There are currently efforts to develop a new field of medicine called "rural medicine" that would help to bridge this gap, but it has yet to be developed, and it continues to be controversial.

My advice to you, if you wish to become a doctor, is to eagerly engage in all things educational. Don't just expand your mind, lay it WIDE OPEN and absorb everything. Always be curious, and never throw away any bit of knowledge as being unimportant. If you really do this, you will develop a broad list of capabilities. You will use them when the time is right.

I hope that helps.

Feel free to contact me through yahoo answers if you have further questions. I'm a guy who is excited about medical education and in particular the direction that surgical training is going.

Answer 2

1. OB/GYNs aren't paid like McDonald's workers. They are usually paid bi-weekly or monthly and pay is based on production, collection, or salary. Mean annual wage is about $215,000/year. Average salary for all nurses in the US is just under $70k. 2. Why does our opinion matter? $70k puts you in the top 33% of all earners in the US. $215k puts you in the top 5%. I wouldn't want to try and live off $70k/year, but that's me. 3. Neither is "more enjoyable" to me, not that it matters. 4. An OB/GYN is a physician that works with women and their reproductive health. They deliver babies, perform surgeries, treat illnesses, and do regular check-ups of reproductive systems in women. NeoNatal nurses are nurses in the NeoNatal ward. Their specific duties will vary by individual and hospital. 5. OB/GYN is 8 years of school and paid residency is 4-5 years. RN is a minimum of 2.5 year. This gets you an ADN, but you may find it difficult to find work with no experience and an ADN. Students who want to do Neonatal work will want at least a BSN (4 years). 6. Whatever you negotiate.

Answer 3

ob/gyn and surgery are two different residencies as far as i know. neonatal surgery would only be an option after surgery. peds by itself is a residency, but you can add other fellowships afterwards. unless you want to spend a really long time in school trying to get all three residencies covered, i'd just pick one.