Do doctors double specialise?
I was curious if it was common for Doctors in the UK to complete more than one sub-specialty.
Eg. I guess it would be common for someone to do something like emergency medicine with pediatrics, but what about something like renal medicine and infectious diseases? Or something even more crazy sounding like cardiology and anesthetics?
Update:@Pangolin: Thanks for your answer. I hadn't considered specialising further in your initial field rather than completing another residency.
My next question is whether you can do 2 'sub-specialties' at once to save time. I say sub-specialties because it seems unlikely you could schedule doing both general surgery and general medicine at the same time whilst something like -- using the above example -- pediatrics and emergency medicine would be feasible.
I am definitely interested in renal medicine and infectious diseases from what I have read so far on the topics. ... the kidneys are so complex!
I am also pretty sure they are both 2 years long, so it seems possible.
Pathology is also very interesting. I am going to have a hard time choosing what to do!
Of course I have plenty of time to decide. I just want to explore options open to me.
Comments
It is not at all uncommon for doctors to train in more than one speciality. There are for example several MRCP and FRCS qualified doctors, ie both surgical and medical degrees.
I don't know about the UK, but here in the US, some doctors double specialize if the two specialties complement each other.
Pediatrics + almost anything is a common one.
General surgery + a surgical subspecialty, or internal medicine + a medical subspecialty makes sense, as the general specialty is a prerequisite to the specialization.
Cardiology + anesthesia would be just plain stupid - that would require an additional 3 years of training (cardiology --> anesthesia) or additional 5 years (anesthesia --> cardiology) for no real benefit. Anesthesiologists with an interest in cardiology might go into cardia anesthesia, which requires only an additional year of fellowship training.
If an IM doc had a particular interest in kidney infections, he/she could focus his/her practice in that area. That sort of thing would require a position at a teaching hospital, and would likely involve spending a fair amount of time in research as opposed to patient care. There just aren't enough kidney infections that other docs can't treat to build a whole practice out of it. No need for an additional fellowship in nephrology, though, unless that person wanted to be a perpetual student and never make a decent salary.
In reality, by the time most of us are qualified to practice, we're around 30 years old and are just plain sick of being in training.
A very good question. I also want to specialise in general paediatrics with interest in neurology. It's good to plan ahead & gather information before you make decisions, you are doing very well. I wish I could give you a helpful answer like the others have but I wish you good luck x