General surgery is a surgical specialty that focuses
on abdominal contents including esophagus, stomach, small bowel, colon,
liver, pancreas, gallbladder and bile ducts, and often the thyroid gland
(depending on the availability of head and neck surgery specialists).
They also deal with diseases involving the skin, breast, soft tissue,
and hernias.
General surgeons may sub-specialize into one or more of the following disciplines:
Laparoscopic surgery
This is a relatively new specialty dealing with minimal access
techniques using cameras and small instruments inserted through 0.3 to
1 cm incisions. Robotic surgery is now evolving from this concept .
Gallbladders, appendices, and colons can all be removed with this
technique. Hernias are now repaired mostly laparoscopically.
Mostbariatric surgery is performed laparoscopically. General surgeons
that are trained today are expected to be proficient in laparoscopic
procedures.
Colorectal surgery
General surgeons treat a wide variety of major and minor colon and
rectal diseases including inflammatory bowel diseases (such
as ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease),diverticulitis, colon and
rectal cancer, gastrointestinal bleeding and hemorrhoids.
Breast surgery
General surgeons perform a majority of all non-cosmetic breast
surgery from lumpectomy to mastectomy, especially pertaining to the
evaluation and diagnosis, of breast cancer.
Endocrine surgery
General surgeons are trained to remove all or part of the thyroid
and parathyroid glands in the neck and the adrenal glands just above
each kidney in the abdomen. Endocrine Surgery is a specialized surgical
field where procedures are performed on endocrine glands to achieve
a hormonal or anti-hormonal effect in the body. Almost always, this
entails operating to remove a tumor which has grown on or within an
endocrine gland.
Dermatological surgery
General surgeons perform a wide variety of skin-related surgeries
ranging from removing suspicious moles to treating major burns. General
surgeons also remove tumors that often grow just below the skin such as
fatty tumors or tumors that arise in muscles or other soft tissues.
General surgeons also treat more complex skin or subcutaneous infections
including necrotizing fasciitis and will often employ skin grafts to
cover defects in the skin resulting from burns, trauma, or infections.
Thoracic Surgery
Thoracic surgeons provide state-of-the-art surgical techniques and
cancer therapies, with a major focus in research of early diagnosis,
better cancer staging, and prediction of recurrent disease in lung and
esophageal cancer.