Internal Medicine

[jofrbr76]

Is internal medicine considered primary care? What does a physician of internal medicine do? diagnois problems with the internal organs? Anyone shadow an internist before?

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[kris]

As far as I can tell, there's 'general internal medicine' which is considered primary care, and then several internal medicine subspecialties (pulmonology, cardiology, etc.)

Essentially, general internal medicine is primary care for adults, in contrast to general peds which is primary care for kiddos.

Lots of IM offices have signs that explicitly state: "no patients under the age of 14."

--Kris (correct me if I'm wrong)

 

[abbeydesert]

Kris is correct- internal medicine is adult medicine (usually 18 and older.) The typical general internist serves as primary care physician for adults and trea

 

[Medigirl]

My father is an internist, which is basically adult primary care. Surprisingly, 60% of his patients are on medicare (over 60), so he is almost a geriatrician.

 

[Dr JPH]

Someone mentioned geriatrician...

What separates an Internist from a Geriatrician?

Is it simply a certain percentage of patients over 60 (65?)?


How would one go about becoming a Geriatrician...IM residency then ____?

Thanks




------------------
Joshua Paul Hazelton
[email protected]
University of the Sciences in Philadelphia (2002)

 

[Mango]

Geriatrics is a subspecialty of IM (just like Cardiology, Pulm, Renal, Neuro, etc,). I believe it requires a fellowship after the 3 year IM residency, but I'm not sure of the length.

 

[dfleis]

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[abbeydesert]

Looks like my post got truncated during the upgrade. Anyway, here's the link again for more info on Internal Medicine from the ACP-ASIM site (including info on the origin of the name)
http://www.acponline.org/journals/impact/summer99.htm#gim

 

[turtleboard]

Geriatrics is actually a subspecialty of Family Practice, as is Sports Medicine. Geriatrics and IM differ in that the patient population tends to be older in Geriatrics, and there's a lot more psychological stuff that goes along with being a geriatrician. Internists deal with chronic illness, and that's why many of the patients tend to be middle-aged. Diseases like diabetes, emphysema, hypertension, and other chronic conditions, are handled best by internists. Geriatricians also deal with chronic illnesses, but have a fountain of knowledge when it comes to old-people problems: particularly with respect to management of infections, end-of-life care, etc.

Primary care is IM, FP, Peds, Psych, and SOMETIMES OB/GYN. Some consider OB to be a little bit above the primary care programs.

There are three different IM programs available. There's an IM Categorical, IM Preliminary, and IM Primary Care program. The difference between the Categorical and Prelim programs is that Prelim programs only last a year, and you have to find something to do after that. Categorical programs are the way to go for subspecialization (Renal, Cardio, Resp, etc.). Primary care programs are very focused on ambulatory care (outpatient clinic type of stuff), but I'm not sure if you can subspecialize.



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Tim Wu.

 

[Linie]

Geriatrics is not just a subspecialty of FP! you can also do it after an internal medicine residency. I believe the geriatric fellowship is 1 or 2 years.

Internal Medicine Categorical is not JUST for launching you into a subspecialty (such as cardiology, nephrology, etc.). After a categorical residency you can continue on as a general medicine physician (eg. be a hospitalist), or do a general medicine fellowship. You can also go into outpatient medicine. Internal Medicine Primary care is the tract that prepares you specifically for an outpatient practice, and puts less emphasis on inpatient care.

Internal Medicine Preliminary is an intern year that you would do before starting residency in a specialty like neurology, psychiatry, ophthalmology, radiology or dermatology, to name a few. When you're going into one of these fields, you apply for residency and a prelim year separately.

Pediatrics has an internship and residency of its own.

 

[Linie]

Also, sports medicine fellowships are available for internal medicine people and physical medicine and rehab people too.

 

[Pathologist]

Does anyone know if a career in aerospace medicine starts out with a year of IM?

 

[Pikevillemedstudent]

Sports medicine is also a fellowship after Emergency Medicine residency. I think the majority of those entering geriatrics and sports medicine enter after completing a FP residency.

 

[docuw]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by Pikevillemedstudent:
Sports medicine is also a fellowship after Emergency Medicine residency. I think the majority of those entering geriatrics and sports medicine enter after completing a FP residency.•

A very large chunk of those that are in "Sports Medicine" have done the Orthopedics residency.

 

[Pikevillemedstudent]

I think that the sports medicine fellowship for Ortho. is completely different than the one for FP, IM, and EM. It has more of a surgery approach, but I could be wrong. I do know that the fellowship for FP, IM, and EM is exactly the same.