Isn’t all medicine internal? How is a it different from a PCP?
In: Biology
The answers so far are wrong. Internal medicine derives it’s name from the word “intern”. Traditionally, doctors that worked the longest hours in the hospital seeing patients from ward to ward were called Internists. As opposed to specialists who only came in to see unique cases and didn’t have to do so much doctor “grunt” work. Over time, the role has evolved into a more formal position that doctors that primarily want to treat patients in what you might call the “general ward”, i.e patients that are sick enough to need hospitalization, but have conditions that are well understood and mostly straightforward to treat, i.e they don’t need a specialist. Such doctors are called Internists and the practice is called Internal medicine.
Has nothing to do with internal vs external organs. Unless you’re a dermatologist, all medicine is internal.
Latest Answers