What is the difference between a doctor and a surgeon?

Doctor of Medicine (M.D. or MD, from the Latin Medicinae Doctor meaning "Teacher of Medicine,") is an academic degree for medical doctors.

In medicine, a surgeon is a person who performs surgery. Surgery is a broad category of invasive medical treatment that involves cutting of a body, whether human or other organism. Surgeons may be physicians, dentists, or veterinarians who SPECIALIZE in surgery.

In other words...first they become a doctor of some type and then they specialize in surgery.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_Doctor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgeon

A "doctor" is anyone who has received a doctorate in a specialized field of knowledge (such as the practice of medicine). "Surgeon" is a subcategory of medical doctors that specialize in surgery.

Surgery is defined as "the art, practice, or work of treating diseases, injuries, or deformities by manual or operative procedures."

Some other subsets such as "physician" maintain a general medical practice with little to no "cutting."

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/doctor
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/surgeon
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/surgery
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/physician

A Doctor may be a degree-holder in any of various different fields, including literature, theology and engineering apart from medicine. In Germany especially people with the title Doctor (Doktor) may have no medical knowledge whatever. The title is associated with medicine in the English speaking world because the only Doctors most people meet are medical ones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctorate
The profession of surgeon, on the other hand, was for many years practised by barbers (hence the striped pole...) and thus is of lesser academic origin. Surgeon as a profession can also refer to people who prune trees, known as tree surgeon.

It is not advised to get these professions mixed up. You will probably get a lousy haircut and shave from a modern surgeon (or a tree surgeon!), and a Doctor of Theology is not the person to see about your headache (aspirin works better than prayer...).