Talk:Diabetology

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The field of diabetology has recently become very intensive and specialised, leading to the development of specialised doctors, called diabetologists.

I excised this phrase because I don't think it applies in Europe and I've never heard it used this way in the US. The more common meaning of "diabetologist" in the US is (1) an internist who has a special interest in diabetes care but had little formal endocrinology training and is not board certified. Less commonly it might be used (2) to apply to any physician who spends the major portion of his research or practice time on diabetes care, but this is informal usage and I have not heard of any trend toward splitting off diabetes from endocrinology with respect to fellowship training or certification. Some academic endocrinologists concentrate primarily on diabetes care but don't usually refer to themselves as diabetologists. I hope you don't think I'm hairsplitting here. Please replace with an explanation of European differences if there is a trend toward formal training and specialization in diabetology separate from endocrinology in Europe. Is this the case? Alteripse 01:43, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * In the UK, endocrinology and diabetology are not formally seperated, but in academic centres they are practiced by different doctors. JFW | T@lk  07:41, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In many large US endocrine depts this is also true, but they are all endocrinologists in the same dept and in terms of legality and academic structure and original training and subspecialty board status and academic directory listings, they could swap patient populations tomorrow. I currently work in such an institution but the term diabetologist is rarely used because of its ambiguity and lower status (as a de facto but not de jure specialty). "Diabetologist" isnt pejorative, but those who use it formally (like in a telephone directory listing or advertising) without claiming to be an endocrinologist are implicitly admitting a lack of board certification in endocrinology, and I suspect that no board-certified endocrinologist, even if he spent 100% of his time doing diabetes, would choose to be formally listed as a diabetologist rather than an endocrinologist. Does that make sense? Is it different in the UK? Alteripse 12:06, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)