>>22699803>>wouldnt arthritis and fractures be handled by orthopedics and generally be long term care? also i think you do your residency after you graduate from med school whereas you just shadow physicians during med school and dont really make nearly as much as 46k in scholarships, here in canada anywaysWell you got the orthopaedics part right in that yeah, they're the ones in charge. But it's not long-term care. Nothing in ortho (and a lot of surgery tbh) is long-term. Someone comes in with a fracture / tumour / abscess the surgeons pin it / cut it out / drain it and that's their job done. The patient might still need a lot of rehab or radiation or whatever but that's largely someone else's responsibility.
As for arthritis, yeah, it's a chronic incurable condition but I was thinking about it from an orthopaedic POV where if it's bad enough that it's coming to them then they'll do one thing and one thing only ... replace the joint.
The rest of the arthritis therapy is long-term care that's usually handled by a GP with input from a rheumatology specialist and some degree of support from allied health (physios, occupational therapists etc) and community health programs (meals on wheels, council gardeners etc). That's exactly the sort of medicine I hate. And sadly it's a lot of medicine these days. Cardiology, respiratory, rheumatology - so much of it is looooooong-term care, fighting against the inevitable, never making your patients better but just trying to slow the decline and maybe (if you're really lucky) get them back to where they were a month ago.
Surgery and emergency medicine (which are the two fields I've enjoyed the most) on the other hand tend to get a conclusive result. Someone comes in sick or injured. You fix them. Send them home (or more likely to rehab if you're a surgeon, or another department of the hospital if you're emergency).
