Overview

The previous two chapters discussed the medical and surgical subspecialties. There are, however, a number of subspecialties that do not fit into either of these categories. Nevertheless, these are areas that merit serious consideration by medical students planning their future careers.

It should be noted that two specialty areas, Pathology and Pediatrics, have a large number of subspecialties. Six of each of these will be identified and are shown in Table 6.1 (see also Table 2.1).

Characteristics

Table 6.2 summarizes the characteristics of the other subspecialties. A detailed discussion of each of them follows.

The choices

Each of the following six other subspecialties will be discussed below.

Aerospace medicine

1. Status: Preventive medicine subspecialty

2. Projected need: Above average

3. Securing a residency: Extremely competitive

4. Training programs: Four years (half being military)

5. Positions open: Ca. 40

6. Training.: Three years (after internship)

7. Weekly patient contact hours: Average

8. Attaining patients: Self and by referral

9. Remuneration: Starting, above average; median, above average

10. Night and emergency calls: Infrequent

scope. Aerospace physicians provide relevant medical guidelines and care for individuals involved in aviation and space travel.

activities. Personel serviced by these physicians are both flight and ground crews. Employers are NASA, the FAA, the aerospace industry, and the military. Areas of service in this specialty include clinical medicine, research and development, and administration. Certification of pilots as to their eligibility for flight duty is a large part of their activity.