science

Medical specialty

Medical specialty is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Medical specialty rather than just read about it. In short: Orthopedic doctor A medical specialty is a branch of medical practice that is focused on a defined group of patients, diseases, skills, or philosophy. Examples include those branches of medicine that deal exclusively with children (pediatrics), cancer (oncology), laboratory medicine (e.g. pathology), or primary care (family medicine).

Key takeaways

Medical specialty belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Medical specialty to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Medical specialty from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Orthopedic doctor A medical specialty is a branch of medical practice that is focused on a defined group of patients, diseases, skills, or philosophy. Examples include those branches of medicine that deal exclusively with children (pediatrics), cancer (oncology), laboratory medicine (e.g. pathology), or primary care (family medicine). After completing medical school or another form of basic training, physicians or surgeons and other clinicians usually further their medical education in a specific specialty of medicine by completing a multiple-year residency to become a specialist.

History To a certain extent, medical practitioners have long been specialized. According to Galen, specialization was common among Roman physicians. The particular system of modern medical specialties evolved gradually during the 19th century. Informal social recognition of medical specialization evolved before the formal legal system. The particular subdivision of the practice of medicine into various specialties varies from country to country, and is somewhat arbitrary.

Classification Medical specialties can be classified along several axes. These are:

Surgical or internal medicine Age range of patients Diagnostic or therapeutic Organ-based or technique-based Throughout history, the most important has been the division into surgical and internal medicine specialties. The surgical specialties are those in which an important part of diagnosis and treatment is achieved through major surgical techniques. The internal medicine specialties are the specialties in which the main diagnosis and treatment is never major surgery. In some countries, anesthesiology is classified as a surgical discipline, since it is vital in the surgical process, though anesthesiologists never perform major surgery themselves. Many specialties are organ-based. Many symptoms and diseases come from a particular organ. Others are based mainly around a set of techniques, such as radiology, which was originally based around X-rays. The age range of patients seen by any given specialist can be quite variable. Pediatricians handle most complaints and diseases in children that do not require surgery, and there are several subspecialties (formally or informally) in pediatrics that mimic the organ-based specialties in adults. Pediatric surgery may or may not be a separate specialty that handles some kinds of surgical complaints in children. A further subdivision is the diagnostic versus therapeutic specialties. While the diagnostic process is of great importance in all specialties, some specialists perform mainly or only diagnostic examinations, such as pathology, clinical neurophysiology, and radiology. This line is becoming somewhat blurred with interventional radiology, an evolving field that uses image expertise to perform minimally invasive procedures.

Specialties that are common worldwide

List of specialties recognized in the European Union and European Economic Area The European Union publishes a list of specialties recognized in the European Union, and by extension, the European Economic Area. There is substantial overlap between some of the specialties and it is likely that for example "Clinical radiology" and "Radiology" refer to a large degree to the same pattern of practice across Europe.

List of North American medical specialties and others In this table, as in many healthcare arenas, medical specialties are organized into the following groups:

Surgical specialties focus on manually operative and instrumental techniques to treat disease. Medical specialties that focus on the diagnosis and non-surgical treatment of disease. Diagnostic specialties focus more purely on diagnosis of disorders.

Salaries According to the 2022 Medscape Physician Compensation Report, physicians on average earn $339K annually. Primary care physicians earn $260K annually while specialists earned $368K annually. The table below details the average range of salaries for physicians in the US of medical specialties:

By country

Australia and New Zealand There are 15 recognised specialty medical Colleges in Australia. The majority of these are Australasian Colleges and therefore also oversee New Zealand specialist doctors. These Colleges are:

The Royal Australasian College of Dental Surgeons supervises training of specialist medical practitioners specializing in oral and maxillofacial surgery in addition to its role in the training of dentists. There are approximately 260 faciomaxillary surgeons in Australia. The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners is a distinct body from the Australian Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. There are approximately 5100 members of the RNZCGP. Within some of the larger colleges, there are sub-faculties, such as: Australasian Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine within the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. There are some collegiate bodies in Australia that are not officially recognised as specialties by the Australian Medical Council but have a college structure for members, such as: Australasian College of Physical Medicine There are some collegiate bodies in Australia of allied health non-medical practitioners with specialisation. They are not recognised as medical specialists, but can be treated as such by private health insurers, such as: Australasian College of Podiatric Surgeons

Canada Specialty training in Canada is overseen by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and the College of Family Physicians of Canada. For specialists working in the province of Quebec, the Collège des médecins du Québec also oversees the process.

Germany In Germany these doctors use the term Facharzt.

India Specialty training in India is overseen by the National Medical Commission (formerly Medical Council of India), responsible for recognition of post graduate training and by the National Board of Examinations. Education of Ayurveda in overseen by Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM), the council conducts UG and PG courses all over India, while Central Council of Homoeopathy does the same in the field of Homeopathy. Specialization and superspecialization in medicine and surgery are pursued after completing MBBS, for which higher medical (MD, DM) and surgical (MS, MCh) degrees are awarded. The following medical and surgical specialties and superspecialties are recognized by the National Medical Commission (formerly Medical Council of India) and National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences:

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Medical specialty

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Medical specialty claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Medical specialty before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Medical specialty ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Medical specialty

In research: Medical specialty appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Medical specialty in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Medical specialty is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Lists of salaries, Medical specialties, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Medical specialty outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Medical specialty” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Medical specialty in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Medical specialty means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Medical specialty out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Medical specialty in simple terms?

Why does Medical specialty matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Medical specialty?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Medical specialty.