Subspecialty Explained

A subspecialty (US English) or subspeciality (international English) is a narrow field of professional knowledge/skills within a specialty of trade, and is most commonly used to describe the increasingly more diverse medical specialties. A subspecialist is a specialist of a subspecialty.

In medicine, subspecialization is particularly common in internal medicine, cardiology, neurology and pathology, psychiatry and has grown as medical practice has:

1. become more complex, and
2. it has become clear that a physician's case volume is negatively associated with their complication rate; that is, complications tend to decrease as the volume of cases per physician goes up.^{[1] [2]}

See also

• Medical specialty

Notes and References

1. McHenry CR . Patient volumes and complications in thyroid surgery . The British Journal of Surgery . 89 . 7 . 821–3 . 2002 . 12081730 . 10.1046/j.1365-2168.2002.02145.x. free . Full Text
2. Birkmeyer JD. Finlayson EV. Birkmeyer CM . Volume standards for high-risk surgical procedures: potential benefits of the Leapfrog initiative . Surgery . 130 . 3 . 415–22 . 2001 . 11562662 . 10.1067/msy.2001.117139.