School Student
What's surgery like?
Sub-specialisation
If you follow the main training pathway, you will train in one of the nine main surgical specialties and, at the end of your training, will qualify as a surgeon in your chosen specialty.
However, many specialities contain a number of defined sub-specialties (such as vascular surgery in general surgery, or spinal surgery in orthopaedics) and in other specialties, you might chose to focus on a particular area or range of operations. During specialty training in some of the larger specialties such as general surgery, you will focus on one of these sub-specialities in the latter years of your training but you will still qualify in the larger specialty (i.e. as a general surgeon, not as a breast surgeon).
Following your CCT, you might choose to undertake further training in your sub-speciality in the form of the fellowship or specific courses, you can find information about these on employment websites, course providers’ websites specialty associations and trainees associations such as ASiT and BOTA.
