How many branches does medicine have?

Answer 1

There are effectively endless branches (or specialities within medicine) depending on how you categorise them....

Broadly, we talk about either clinical or academic medicine (with public health falling somewhere in between).

Within clinical medicine, the following broad ranges exist:

Anaesthetics and Intensive Care

Emergency Medicine

General Practice

Medicine

Obstetrics and Gynaecology (which is really a branch of surgery)

Occupational Medicine

Opthalmology

Paediatrics

Pathology

Psychiatry

Public Health

Radiology and Imaging

Surgery (of which there are many sub-specialities)

Within medicine, the following are regarded as their own speciality:

Allergy

Audiology

Acute Medicine

Clinical Genetics

Clinical Neurophysiology

Cardiology

Dermatology

Clinical Pharmacology

Endocrinology and Diabetes

Gastroenterology

General (Internal) Medicine

Genito-Urinary Medicine

Geriatric Medicine

Immunology

Infectious Diseases

Medical Oncology

Medical Opthalmology (i.e. not surgeons)

Neurology

Nuclear Medicine (Medical Physics)

Palliative Care

Pharmaceutical Medicine

Rehabilitation

Renal Medicine

Respiratory (Chest) Medicine

Rheumatology

Sports and Exercise

Tropical Medicine

Of course, within each of these medical specialties there will be several sub-specialisations!