community general surgery cancer care?

[tf21594]

I'm curious what kind of oncologic cases community general surgeons see. Obviously the major operations like whipples, etc. are sent to academic centers with fellowship trained surgical oncologists, but I'm wondering about volume and cases that your standard, non-fellowship trained community general surgeon would be taking care of. Could somebody shed some light on this for me?

Thanks!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[ACSurgeon]

I'm curious what kind of oncologic cases community general surgeons see. Obviously the major operations like whipples, etc. are sent to academic centers with fellowship trained surgical oncologists, but I'm wondering about volume and cases that your standard, non-fellowship trained community general surgeon would be taking care of. Could somebody shed some light on this for me?

Thanks!

Keep in mind there are community surgeons who are fellowship trained in surgical oncology and do the same cases at academic centers. Certainly not the rule but not rare.

General surgeons do some skin, breast, endocrine and colorectal cancers. Maybe early gastric/small bowel and appendix cancers depending on setting and experience. Also, the community hospitals resources can be the rate limiting step sometimes (availability of blood, ICU care etc)

 

[tf21594]

Thanks for your reply!

Is it possible as a general surgeon to tailor your practice to be heavily weighted towards caring for cancer patients? I guess what I'm asking is, if you prove that you're a competent surgeon and network well with the local oncology groups, is it possible that the bulk of your practice (although, maybe not exclusively) could be taking care of cancer patients?

 

[vhawk]

Thanks for your reply!

Is it possible as a general surgeon to tailor your practice to be heavily weighted towards caring for cancer patients? I guess what I'm asking is, if you prove that you're a competent surgeon and network well with the local oncology groups, is it possible that the bulk of your practice (although, maybe not exclusively) could be taking care of cancer patients?

Sure

 

[balaguru]

Thanks for your reply!

Is it possible as a general surgeon to tailor your practice to be heavily weighted towards caring for cancer patients? I guess what I'm asking is, if you prove that you're a competent surgeon and network well with the local oncology groups, is it possible that the bulk of your practice (although, maybe not exclusively) could be taking care of cancer patients?

It all depends on who you are competing with. If there are fellowship trained surgeons in your area who are easy to work with and have good results you will probably not get the referrals. Oncology groups are not the biggest source of referrals for surgeons unless you are looking for port placement referrals. Surgeons are actually more of a referral source for med onc. Melanoma comes from derm. Breast comes from PCP's and obgyns. GI tumors comes from GI's and PCP's. Endo comes from PCP's and endocrinologists. And so on. You need to study the market where you want to end up to figure out how to build the practice you want.