@Clotmaster @ASH_hematology It wasn't always that way! Hematology is older, and before medical oncology developed as an independent discipline in the 1960s pts w/ cancer were cared for by organ specialists (eg gastroenterologists for people w/ colon cancer, pulmonologists for those w/ lung cancer, etc.)/1
@Clotmaster @ASH_hematology Hematology emerged in 1800s with cell counters & stains, and "modern hematology" is often said to have begun in the 1920s w/ pernicious anemia Rx. The link between hematology and medical oncology in the US really emerged in the 1940s and later./2
@Clotmaster @ASH_hematology Outside the US, hematology is often still independent & may be more closely allied to laboratory medicine/pathology than oncology. The heme-onc connection developed in part because many early chemotherapies had myelosuppression as their dose limiting toxicity.../3
@Clotmaster @ASH_hematology ...and because several heme malignancies were among the first to be treated with drugs, rather than surgery or radiation, beginning with leukemia in 1947. To some extent is is an artificial connection. Thrombosis/hemostasis is closer to cardiology or vascular medicine than onc./4
@Clotmaster @ASH_hematology Immunohematology is closer to rheumatology or immunology than oncology, etc. Many oncologists do little classical hematology, hematology-only trainees can find it hard to find jobs outside academia, and I think the "heme-onc fellowship" will change in the next 10 years. /5End
