Subspecialty

Asubspecialtyorsubspeciality(seespelling differences) is a narrow field of professionalknowledge/skillswithin a specialty oftrade,and is most commonly used to describe the increasingly more diversemedical specialties.Asubspecialistis a specialist of a subspecialty.

Inmedicine,subspecialization is particularly common ininternal medicine,cardiology,neurologyandpathology,psychiatryand has grown as medical practice has:

1. become more complex, and
2. it has become clear that aphysician's case volume is negatively associated with their complication rate; that is, complications tend to decrease as the volume of cases per physician goes up.

See also

• Medical specialty