subspecialty

{{Short description|Narrow field within a specialty}}

A subspecialty or subspeciality (see spelling differences) is a narrow field of professional knowledge/skills within a specialty of trade, and is most commonly used to describe the increasingly more diverse medical specialties. A subspecialist is a specialist of a subspecialty.

In medicine, subspecialization is particularly common in internal medicine, cardiology, neurology and pathology, psychiatry and has grown as medical practice has:

1. become more complex, and
2. it has become clear that a physician'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.{{cite journal |author=McHenry CR |title=Patient volumes and complications in thyroid surgery |journal=The British Journal of Surgery |volume=89 |issue=7 |pages=821–3 |date=2002 |pmid=12081730 |doi=10.1046/j.1365-2168.2002.02145.x|doi-access=free }} [https://www.doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2168.2002.02145.x Full Text] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231230160855/https://academic.oup.com/bjs/article/89/7/821/6150905 |date=2023-12-30 }}{{cite journal |author=Birkmeyer JD|author2=Finlayson EV|author3=Birkmeyer CM |title=Volume standards for high-risk surgical procedures: potential benefits of the Leapfrog initiative |journal=Surgery |volume=130 |issue=3 |pages=415–22 |date=2001 |pmid=11562662 |doi=10.1067/msy.2001.117139}}