Internal medicine specialty is not under primary care?

[deleted1058524]

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I like working at a hospital and seeing acute patients. There's a fulfillment in seeing the sickest patients getting better under my care.
However, I would love to work for the underserved population in outpatient setting like free medical clinic.

My ideal future is working at a community hospital as a hospitalist (part time?)and also want to work at outpatient clinic.
So I was interested in IM specialty and I thought it was under primary care. I've been writing this on my secondaries to question like "what specialty are you most interested?"

Is it not?

 

[gyngyn]

General internal medicine is considered a primary care specialty (by the US government and most others).
Sub-specialty training (fellowship after IM residency) is not considered primary care.

 

[r2med]

Did someone tell you IM is not primary care? Like the above expert pointed, IM by itself is definitely primary care. IM with a sub-specialty is not and IM is the basis for several such sub-specialties.