The medical field is a diverse and include different areas of medicine for different diseases. A single doctor cannot treat every single health problems. So every medical practitioner has their own area of expertise. Sometimes people get confused about their symptoms or certain kind of wound and end up seeing the wrong doctor. In this article, we’ll study what precisely an internist does, what training and education they require and how they are different from general medical practitioners. Internists are medical professionals who treat a wide range of conditions that affect the body’s internal organs. They are experts of internal medicines. An internist’s distinctive feature is that he / she will only treat adults and not children or teenagers.

The education program to become an internist is similar to that in other fields of medicine. This begins with gaining entry to medical school. In order to enter medical school, candidates will also need to pass a medical college entrance examination. The examination is a multiple-choice assessment that will determine the suitability of the applicant for medical training as well as future work as a doctor. Then the students must undergo four years of medical training and education at the medical school. This training will entail organized study and shifts in hospitals and medical practices. Practitioners must afterwards take up a general internal medicine residency program after completing a medical degree, which will provide more practical training to prepare for life as a doctor. For doctors to practice internal medicine in the United States, the residency program is necessary. Normally these courses last at least 3 years, but for specializations that include surgery, they can be longer. During the first year of their residency, both doctors must pass a medical licensing test. All programs are accredited by the Accreditation Committee for Graduate Medical Education.

Many internists concentrate on specific areas of internal medicine. Some of these specializations include:

  • cardiology
  • endocrinology
  • gastroenterology
  • infectious disease
  • hematology
  • oncology
  • pulmonary disease
  • rheumatology
  • immunology

Internists are people’s first point of call for medicine and they treat adults of all ages. Many patients undergoing treatment develop serious and multiple long term conditions and they require complex and proper care which is provided to them by internists. So internists need to have a vast and comprehensive understanding of each condition and in-depth knowledge about medicines. Internal medicine is a broad field, so the work of an internist varies. For example, they could be treating one person with diabetes and another having an ear infection. Their job is to coordinate care and manage treatment, possibly over long periods. The internist will monitor each condition carefully and, if necessary, update treatment approaches regularly to optimize the management of symptoms. Internists may also conduct medical or academic research, which can involve many different tasks ranging from running clinical trials to analyzing healthcare records.

People often get confused between internists and general practitioners since they both are primary doctors and often see the same types of patients. But they have two major differences. While a general practitioner will train both in internal medicine and other types of medicine including pediatric care for children, an internist only specializes in internal medicine. All the internists provide care only to adults but the general practitioners treat people of all ages including children and adolescents.

Many internists are interested in developing more systematic research skills that is learned by them through a Ph.D. or research fellowship. To keep up with new technologies, it is very important to have a good understanding of research methods and mainly the statistics are a key.