Editing Physician (section)

===Physician and surgeon===
{{Further|Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery|Doctor of Medicine}}
Around the world, the combined term "physician and surgeon" is used to describe either a general practitioner or any medical practitioner irrespective of specialty.<ref name="Fowler"/><ref name="newSOED">{{cite book |author=Brown, Lesley |title=The New shorter Oxford English dictionary on historical principles |publisher=Clarendon |location=Oxford [Eng.] |year=2002 |isbn=0-19-861271-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/newshorteroxford00lesl }}</ref> This usage still shows the original meaning of physician and preserves the old difference between a physician, as a practitioner of ''physic'', and a surgeon. The term may be used by state medical boards in the United States, and by equivalent bodies in Canadian provinces, to describe any medical practitioner.