Healthcare Archive

How to avoid having unnecessary tests—and getting the wrong diagnosis.

Increasing time pressures, growing patient loads, and fears of malpractice lawsuits have forced many doctors to resort to a practice of "cookbook medicine," according to Drs. Leana Wen and Joshua Kosowsky, emergency physicians at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital. Rather than listening to patients' personal health stories and concerns, doctors simply put them through a barrage of tests based on their main symptom.

As medical knowledge has become greater, doctors have formed various specialties. In addition, other health professional fields have been created. Here is some information about physician specialists, and other specialists, and what they do.

Physician Specialists

Physicians that choose to train for a specialty complete additional training. After (typically) 4 years of medical school, they go on to internship and residency, which can take anywhere from 1-5 years (depending on the kind of residency training). Then, they go on for still more training in a specialty, which adds several more years.