Is there such a thing as an Internist?

[ChasingMaria]

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I generalized the title but what I'm asking is, what is the difference between a hospitalist, Internist, and someone who goes into primary care after IM residency? What about income differences and lifestyles?

 

[d1ony5u5]

Not that I know a whole lot about the subject, but my impression is that "Internist" is kind of an anachronism in terms of practice. It was the name used to describe MDs who were not surgeons and that took care of patients who were "interned" in the hospital a long time ago. Currently "Internist"' is just a name that doesn't really have to do with the way IM docs practice now a days.

In contemporary practice the specialty has become roughly divided between docs who prefer outpt and those who prefer inpt. The ones that do mostly outpt are the primary care docs and the ones that do mostly inpt are hospitalists. These are unofficial paths that an IM doc can take if he/she chooses not to sub specialize.

That's my understanding.

 

[francisco84]

Not that I know a whole lot about the subject, but my impression is that "Internist" is kind of an anachronism in terms of practice. It was the name used to describe MDs who were not surgeons and that took care of patients who were "interned" in the hospital a long time ago. Currently "Internist"' is just a name that doesn't really have to do with the way IM docs practice now a days.

In contemporary practice the specialty has become roughly divided between docs who prefer outpt and those who prefer inpt. The ones that do mostly outpt are the primary care docs and the ones that do mostly inpt are hospitalists. These are unofficial paths that an IM doc can take if he/she chooses not to sub specialize.

That's my understanding.

This is wrong. The term "internal medicine" and subsequently "internist" comes from the era when doctors studied in Germany as it was the leader in the western world in medicine. This was also an era when there was a clear distinction between physicians and surgeons. The term that the germans used for the speciality of general adult medicine transliterated to "internal medicine". The word actually means something like "core" or "central".

 

[Instatewaiter]

I generalized the title but what I'm asking is, what is the difference between a hospitalist, Internist, and someone who goes into primary care after IM residency? What about income differences and lifestyles?

If you trained in internal medicine, whether you do inpt or outpatient medicine, you are an internist. FM who works as a hospitalist is not an internist.

A tome could be written on the difference in lifestyle, burnout, income on Hospitalist vs outpatient IM. Make your question a little more specific