To become a gastroenterologist, you’ll need to complete a lot of schooling: in addition to medical school, you’ll need to complete a year-long internship, a three- to four-year residency, and sometimes a fellowship program. The specific education requirements for a gastrologist vary by jurisdiction, but in most cases, this career path necessitates upwards of ten years of formal medical training. Of course, education isn’t the only prerequisite for becoming a gastroenterologist. To be successful, you must have a genuine interest in learning about and repairing the digestive system and stomach. It’s also important to be able to connect with patients and interact with them easily.
Gastroenterologists are the most common type of gastroenterologist. This means that in order to become a gastrologist, you must first become a gastroenterologist, after which you can choose to specialize in gastrology more specifically. Because gastrology is such an important part of gastroenterology, medical schools and residency programs rarely offer specific gastrology programs. To work as a gastroenterologist, you must usually be willing to take on a subspecialty within a subspecialty.
Gastrologists and gastroenterologists do a lot of the same things. The main distinction is in scope. The study of the entire digestive system and its processes is known as gastroenterology. A gastroenterologist is responsible for everything from the throat and esophagus to the stomach, large and small intestine, liver, pancreas, and gallbladder. A gastrologist, on the other hand, is a stomach specialist. Obtaining this type of sub-specialty is usually a difficult task.
After graduating from medical school, most medical systems require you to complete an internship in internal medicine before applying for a position as a gastroenterology resident. A gastroenterology fellowship with a focus on gastrology is usually required in addition. Before you can become a gastrologist, you will most likely need to conduct extensive gastrology-related research and publish at least one paper on a gastrology-related topic.
It’s also common to be able to specialize even more. Surgical training is required of gastroenterological surgeons in addition to their gastroenterological internship and residency requirements. To work as a pediatric gastroenterologist, you’ll typically need to complete a pediatric rotation and extensive research on how stomach problems in children differ from those in adults.
The work that an exclusively stomach doctor can do varies, but it is usually very complicated. Gastroenterologists are usually the ones who treat patients with simple stomach problems. Only when the problems and stomach diseases presented are highly complex or beyond the scope of gastroenterology will gastroenterologists refer patients to gastrologists. Much of the training that goes into becoming a gastroenterologist is designed to prepare you for these types of cases.