internal medicine

internal medicine, medical specialty that deals with the diagnosis and medical, as opposed to surgical, treatment of diseases of adults. It is broadly identical with the practice of the physician, as opposed to that of the surgeon. Internal medicine, which deals with the entire patient rather than a particular organ system, is in effect the parent of other medical specialties such as cardiology, dermatology, and gastroenterology. An advanced practitioner of internal medicine is called an internist in the United States and many other countries.

In 1936 the American Board of Internal Medicine was established in the United States, with the object of formally certifying specialists in internal medicine. Professional qualifications for certification include graduation from an approved medical school, followed by an internship of not less than one year and, further, a prolonged program of intensified training and experience. The core of this program consists of two to three years of full-time residency training in a hospital.

Additional study in the program may be devoted to work in any clinical, investigative, or basic science field related to internal medicine. The training program for internists emphasizes advanced knowledge of anatomy, microbiology, biochemistry, pathology, pharmacology, and physiology. Completion of training is followed by written and oral examinations given by the board and then by certification.

The development of internal medicine as a scientific discipline begins with Thomas Sydenham’s concept of disease, articulated in the 17th century. Sydenham closely observed clinical phenomena at the patient’s bedside and conceived for the first time the possibility of a variety of distinct “diseases,” as opposed to general illness caused by the imbalance of “humours,” which was then the prevailing theory of disease causation. Sydenham’s work created a framework for the classification of diseases, which was built upon by François Boissier de Sauvages, who in 1763 published the first methodical nosology, or description of disease symptoms. Sauvages emphasized symptomatology as the basis for disease classification, since there was no information then available about the causes of diseases.

From the time of Sauvages until the 20th century, internists could do little to treat diseases. Unlike surgeons, who could remove the offending organ, internists had no specific therapies; most of the “treatments” that physicians could offer made the patient worse, not better. The measure of an internist’s skill was the accuracy of his diagnosis and the reliability of his advice about the probable outcome of the disease. Only with the development of disease-specific therapies at the beginning of the 20th century did internal medicine become effective in the cure, rather than just the supportive care, of patients. As more and more specific medications and courses of therapy became available and the volume of medical knowledge increased, more and more subspecialties devoted to particular organ systems split off, leaving internal medicine as the specialty of physicians dealing with all problems of the adult patient.