how much general medicine in PM&R

[neurotrancer]

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How much of a given PM&R pt. visit involves dealing with general medicine issues?

I heard form one person who was a former PM&R who switched for family med say that it is a lot of family medicine. Do you agree?

I'm really conflicted as far as my interests go...I'm interested in general medicine a lot, but I also think I would like to treat neurodegenerative diseases a lot too. PM&R seems more interventional than neurology though. any thoughts would be much appreciated.

 

[macman]

How much of a given PM&R pt. visit involves dealing with general medicine issues?

I heard form one person who was a former PM&R who switched for family med say that it is a lot of family medicine. Do you agree?

I'm really conflicted as far as my interests go...I'm interested in general medicine a lot, but I also think I would like to treat neurodegenerative diseases a lot too. PM&R seems more interventional than neurology though. any thoughts would be much appreciated.

That depends on the sphere of practice. For a resident on an inpatient rehab unit there is a decent amount of bread and butter medical issues. From what I hear (those who are in practice feel free to chime in) in the 'real world' hospitalists are often involved to handle some of these things.

In the outpatient setting-there is very little focus on general medicine in itself, but certainly plenty of overlap with Rheum, Neuro, Ortho, etc. I do not wear a stethoscope in the outpatient clinic if that gives you some idea. While it is ncessary to keep a wide differential diagnosis in mind-if someones review of systems makes you think that they need more medicine workup that is probably best referred back. It takes me long enough to do a thorough MSK H&P, especially for folks with chronic pain-it can be hard enough to focus the visit as it is.

I guess I do not see where I would describe any of it as 'a lot of family medicine'.

How far along are you in school?