When you go to the hospital for surgery, chances are you'll be under the care of a surgeon. The surgeon is the person who will actually fix your bone or remove your tumor - and they're usually an M.D., unless you happen to be at a hospital that specializes in osteopathic medicine, then it's likely a D.O.
Lets dive a little more into this...
Types of physicians
There are two types of physicians, with similar degrees: M.D. (Medical Doctor) and D.O. (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine). Both types of doctors receive similar training in medical school, but osteopathic physicians spend more time learning about how the body works as a whole and how it interacts with its environment. They also learn more about alternative methods of treatment to use alongside surgery, such as physical therapy and exercise regimens.
Instead of relying just on surgery to help patients, osteopathic doctors try to find underlying causes for the problem they're treating so they can prevent it from happening again in the future. Many times this means encouraging lifestyle changes, like quitting smoking or losing weight. This can be a huge benefit for patients because once the original problem is taken care of, osteopathic doctors can focus on prevention to make sure you stay healthy moving forward.
Is becoming a surgeon hard?
The training to become a surgeon is hard - it usually takes a couple of years to complete all of the required education and training. Becoming a surgeon requires graduating from college or university, earning an undergraduate degree and then going through at least another 4 years of studies and training.
Surgery can be incredibly rewarding, both practically and emotionally. Surgeons are responsible for saving lives and improving the lives of many others. But surgery is also a very demanding profession that requires long hours, high stress, and an extremely high level of commitment.
Surgery is not for everyone. It is a highly competitive field with an extremely high rejection rate. Only the most dedicated students get through university to become surgeons.
