Curated category
Medical specialties
- PediatricsPediatrics takes its name from two ancient Greek words: pais, meaning child, and iatros, meaning healer. The word is a statement of purpose.
- CardiologyCardiology sits at the center of medicine's most urgent business: keeping the heart beating. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the…
- NeurologyNeurology takes its name from the ancient Greek word neûron, meaning string or nerve, paired with the suffix logia, meaning the study of.
- DermatologyDermatology is the branch of medicine devoted entirely to the skin, and it sits at an unusual crossroads: part physician's practice, part surgical suite.
- GastroenterologyGastroenterology takes its name from three Greek roots: gastḗr for belly, énteron for intestine, and logía for the study of something.
- ImmunologyImmunology began with thorns pushed into starfish larvae. The Russian biologist Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov pressed small thorns into the larvae and watched…
- OncologyOncology begins with a papyrus. Around 3000 BCE, Egyptian physicians encountered something they could not ignore: a bulging tumor of the breast.
- HematologyHematology is the branch of medicine built entirely around blood, a substance so central to life that its disorders can touch nearly every organ in the body.
- PsychiatryPsychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to diagnosing, treating, and preventing mental disorders, the conditions that touch cognition, perception, mood…
- RadiologyRadiology is the medical specialty that uses imaging to see inside the bodies of humans and other animals, then uses those pictures to diagnose disease and…
- UrologyUrology takes its name from the ancient Greek word for urine, ouron, yet the specialty reaches far beyond that single bodily function.
- DentistryDentistry is older than the written history of humanity. The earliest evidence stretches back tens of thousands of years, with rich traces appearing from…
- SurgerySurgery is a medical specialty that cuts into the body to fix what is wrong inside it. As a general rule, a procedure counts as surgical when it involves…