With the prevalent trend for increasing sub-specialization in today’s medical practice, General Surgery is a highly competitive, rewarding and highly demanding specialty in medicine. There is an increasing trend toward sub-specialization within general surgery. American Board of Surgery recognizes this trend through its certification process and now recognizes the following disciplines within surgery for special certification in order to progress into further sub-specialty training. However, recently, board certification has been delegated into separate sub-branches, whereby successful completion of a Residency in General Surgery is not necessarily required, but may be well desired  depending on the country and area of practice, as well as the individual sub-specialty.

Many sub-specialties are still part of the General Surgical training program. That is, General Surgeons may sub-specialize into one or more of the following disciplines:

• Colorectal
• Vascular
• CT
• Plastics