A friend once commented that I am a surgeon who stares at women’s chest, which I am completely innocent of.  I simply brushed away with a smile. Since you are not a professional in the medical field, which also indicate that you are a healthy individual who do not need to visit hospital often. Therefore, you are not familiar with the healthcare setting. To be frank, I specialize in general surgery, but treating breast diseases isn’t my only field of focus. Please allow me to elaborate in the following three questions. 

Q: Are you a doctor?

A: Yes, I am a genuine doctor – I got into medical school with a flying score. I have experienced the traditional medical education, which was in fact very difficult to be accepted back in the days.  Graduated as a doctor for 15 years, with two post-doctoral degrees in both China and United States, where I did my surgical oncology fellowship at Mount Sinai Hospital. In addition, I have been on the front line of clinical medicine since I got back 10 years ago.

Q: What is the definition of Surgery? Does surgery only target the diseases on the outside?  And internal medicine targets the illness inside human body, am I correct?

A: That concept is incorrect.

Medicine is an extremely complex science at its greatest extent, with numerous majors. It can be categorized into 4 major : internal medicine, surgery, obstetric and gynecology, and pediatric in addition to other specialties.

Surgery is a medical treatment that can be achieved through operations. If there is a tumor in a human body, it would require a surgeon to extract the tumor during the operation. Internal Medicine, on the other hand, is a treatment implemented mainly through drug therapy. Nevertheless, some diseases on the surface of the body can also be treated with pharmaceutical drugs, which can also be treated as a case of internal medicine; this is merely just a general saying. Internal medicine consist of respiratory, circulatory, digestive, urinary, hematology, endocrinology, metabolizing diseases, rheumatic diseases, and other illness that can be caused by other physiological features. Together with surgery, they are known to be the two pillars of clinical medicine.

I wont go into details for other specialties such as Obstetric and Gynecology, pediatrics, ophthalmology, ENT, dermatology and plastic surgery, so we don't deviate from the topic.

Focusing on my field of general surgery, it further branches down into many different area – biliary , vascular, gastric, thyroid and breast, hernia, colorectal and so on…

As you can see, I am a general surgeon yet breast diseases are merely just minor branch of general surgery.

General Surgery does not literally mean it is general.  It is named as General Surgery because of the wide coverage of various territories.  It is the most extensive department in any hospitals; encompassing the most complex and widest range of disease. Breast diseases are simply just a small field under breast and thyroid surgeries. I am proudly to say that general surgeons are not “general/ordinary”, moreover, we not only look at breast. (Some hospitals would single out breast diseases in surgery department due to large amount of incoming patients.)

Most people get confuse with number of department in a hospital, let alone the specific of each department. Same could be said about us, we get puzzled when you start talking about taxation, marketing, human resources and media design. We often become an amateur when we step outside of our expertise.

Q: So breast diseases can be treated under general surgery? How does breast augmentation surgery work?

A: Surgeries such as breast implant are under plastic surgery department; what we treat are breast diseases. As a surgeon what we do is the removal of breast lesions – a procedure that may affect beauty. The job of plastic surgeon, however, is to restore beauty. Nevertheless, our first priority is to ensure patient’s health, and then we focus on the physical attractiveness.  Of course, if possible, we would give full measure to perfect the incisions equivalent to the standard of plastic surgeries.  But then again, these request from a healthy individual are best fulfill with the assistant of a plastic surgeon.

Author｜Keying, Song｜Founder of Yosemite Clinic｜Surgeon｜M.D Ph.D