[The contradictory contexts of interdisciplinarity].

The benefits of interdisciplinary approaches in patient care, research and education are quite obvious and set the trend for more interdisciplinary structures. In order to achieve sustained success, however, there are numerous risks of interdisciplinary collaboration that have to be considered. Interdisciplinarity leads to an increasing degree of specialization and consequently to a greater experience of specialists in highly specific procedures. Nevertheless, this is accompanied by a loss of experience of those who do not perform these procedures anymore. Not least, due to the high specialization, the surgeon's profession is changing from generalist to specialist. Hence, the education of young physicians, students and researchers has to be adapted to this reality. It remains unanswered if these changes contribute to the decline in the number of applicants in surgery. In conclusion, the risks of the contradictory contexts of interdisciplinarity can be counteracted with simple principles of fair and cooperative partnership.