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Posted on March 25th, 2010

General Practitioner or Plastic Surgeon

How much different is medical school for a plastic surgeon versus a general practitioner? All medical students start off with the same basic education. Generally, this is a 4-year program at a public or private med school. Courses commonly taken by first-year students include organic chemistry, anatomy, psychiatry, microbiology and immunology, neuroscience, and histology. Vast amounts of reading and memorization characterize any medical school student's initial education. Before the typical med school student has completed all of his training, he or she will have spent a minimum of eleven years of education or internships before receiving his or her medical license. A key determinant of exactly how long a person's medical training takes is that individual's specialty. Some of the largest and most well-known specialties are family practice, pediatrics, psychiatry, surgery, general internal medicine and obstetrics and gynecology and plastic surgery. In all of these areas, medical students are required to dissect cadavers as well as perform minor procedures like suturing lacerations on living patients.

General practitioners are what the average citizen thinks of as a traditional doctor. They are trained to deal with the whole spectrum of disease and injury, and are usually the average citizen's first contact with the health care system. Since GPs assess and treat many different kinds of conditions, injuries and illnesses, their practices are generally characterized by lots of variety. A general practitioner's training includes 3-8 years of residency after med school. During residency GPs do hospital rotations in all the branches of medicine in order to learn the intricacies of family medicine. The average income for a GP was approximately $161,000 in 2008, and varied based on factors like the doctor's years of experience, the size of his or her practice and its location.

Most people think of a plastic surgeon as one who repairs, reconstructs, or replaces damaged areas of skin or structures on the head or face. While this is true, a plastic surgeon may also treat the musculoskeletal system, as well as hands, breasts, and extremities. Cosmetic surgery - which is part of the plastic surgery field - focuses on improving the patient's overall appearance. After completing medical school, plastic surgeons can train in various sub-specialties that focus on the head and neck or the hand and wrist. Plastic surgeons complete a residency that lasts from five to seven years. If an individual chooses to pursue one of the sub-specialties of plastic surgery, he or she is required to train for an additional year. Plastic surgeons earn from $300,000 to $800,000 annually.

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