General Internal Medicine vs Family Medicine

[daelroy]

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Questions

1. In the practicing world, which of these docs are happier?
2. Which field has a better future outlook?
3. Which of these fields is more interesting in your opinion?

 

[MustafaMond]

Questions

1. In the practicing world, which of these docs are happier?
2. Which field has a better future outlook?
3. Which of these fields is more interesting in your opinion?

1. FM (Ignorance is bliss)
2. IM
3. IM

 

[joules]

I'm IM, but my husband is FP, so I have a pretty good idea what is involved in both residencies.

Some questions you need to ask yourself:

1) Do I prefer a clinic based primary care practice or a hospital practice?
2) Do I want to treat a variety of conditions and a variety of patients or do I want to subspecialize in a narrower field with patients who are more homegenous?
3) Do I plan to practice in a small community (where you may be the only physician in many instances) or do I want to practice in a large city?

As for me, I plan to specialize, and it would drive me nutz if I had to constantly "switch gears" -- taking care of OB/Gyn, Pediatrics, Ortho stuff, etc. However, my husband would be bored to tears if he had to see a cardiac or nephrology or pulmonary patient over and over again. I feel that the family practice residents are a lot better prepared to go into a primary care/clinic practice than the internal medicine residents, and they get a lot more experience with clinic procedures/billing/running a clinic. However, I think that the Internal Medicine residents get more experience taking care of hospitalized patients. Plus internal medicine residents have so many options when it comes to subspecialty. So it's basically where your interests are!! Hope this helps 🙂

 

[gherelin]

I agree-FP is much better designed for outpatient medicine. There was an article recently in the NYTimes where a patient was running from one specialist to the next to diagnose various minor complaints. All of them, one was plantar fascitis for example, would have been quickly diagnosed and treated all in one place-at an FP office. There are a lot of FP hospitalists nowadays, but as a FP resident myself I think it's a mistake.