what is a pediatric general surgeon?

Virgil Loatman: Pediatric general surgeon doesn't make much sense.Pediatric surgery is a subspecialty of general surgery. Those who have been trained in general surgery go on to do more training to be pediatric surgeons.Most surgeons will operate on children within their area of expertise - neurosurgeons do surgery on kids, as do urologists, ENTs, orthopedic surgeons, etc. General surgeons operate on kids with routine surgical needs (appendectomy, hernia repair, etc)Pediatric surgeons are there to do operations that are particularly complex, and are found only/mostly in babies and children. A lot of these surgeries are related to birth defects, like gastroschisis, omphalocele, T-E fistula, and so on. They are also a little better equipped to manage the post-op care of particularly sick children.Hope that helps....Show more

Sunshine Holets: Pediatric surgery IS a subspecialization of general surgery. The other pediatric surgeons tend to start out as the other thi! ng first (ortho, urology, etc) and then limit their practice to children. Pediatric surgeons tend to fix birth defects and do a few routine surgeries, like hernias, in children.

Voncile Slaubaugh: dunno????

Christiane Cattano: Pediatric surgery arose in the middle of the 20th century as the surgical care of birth defects required novel techniques and methods and became more commonly based at children's hospitals. One of the sites of this innovation was Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Beginning in the 1940s under the surgical leadership of C. Everett Koop, newer techniques for endotracheal anesthesia of infants allowed surgical repair of previously untreatable birth defects. By the late 1970s, the infant death rate from several major congenital malformation syndromes had been reduced to near zero.Subspecialties of pediatric surgery itself include: neo-natal surgery and fetal surgery.Other areas of surgery also have pediatric specialties of their own that req! uire further training: pediatric cardiothoracic surgery, pedia! tric transplant surgery, pediatric neurosurgery, and pediatric urological surgery.Common pediatric diseases that may require pediatric surgery include * congenital malformations: lymphangioma, cleft lip and palate,esophageal atresia and tracheoesophageal fistula, hypertrophic pyloric stenosis, intestinal atresia, necrotizing enterocolitis, meconium plugs, Hirschsprung's disease, imperforate anus, undescended testes,... * abdominal wall defects: omphalocele, gastroschisis, hernias,... * chest wall deformities: pectus excavatum * childhood tumors: like neuroblastoma, Wilms' tumor, rhabdomyosarcoma, ATRT, liver tumors, teratomas,... * Separation of conjoined twinsPlease see the web page for more details on Pediatric surgery....Show more