What Is Gastroenterology?
July 27, 2021
The medical practice of gastroenterology is primarily focused on the human body’s digestive system as well as its related disorders. In the interim, and as a matter of interest, the training that a gastroenterology specialist in Daniel Island is extensive. A total of eight years of pre-medical and medical education training, as well as a one-year internship is required before the gastroenterology specialist gets to practice. In actual fact, that is not all. There is still more. A further three years of internal residency is still required. And then there is the gastroenterology fellowship, which also lasts as long as three years.
This highly specialised form of practiced medicine focuses on all diseases affecting the gastrointestinal tract. The gastrointestinal tract runs from the mouth right down to the anus. All gastroenterologists are required to perform any number of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. One of the most familiar such procedures is that of the colonoscopy. Least familiar to the layman and woman might be the endoscopic retrograde.
Other focus areas of the gastroenterology include the liver biopsy and transplant hepatology. Now, the advanced endoscopy is also referred to as interventional or surgical endoscopy. It still forms part of gastroenterology. But it now focuses on more advanced endoscopic techniques which will be geared towards the treatment of pancreatic, hepatobiliary and gastrointestinal diseases. Curiously, the advanced techniques used also apply to what is known as endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography.
Is there no acronym for this latter practice because surely no layman or woman in his or her right mind is going to be able to remember such a procedure? Finally, gastroenterology specialists also practice what is known as hepatology, or hepatobiliary medicine which is the study of the liver, pancreas and biliary tree.
Do take care.