Doctors of Internal Medicine are also known as Doctors for Adults. We are sometimes also called Internists, but are not "interns", those are doctors in training just out of medical school.
We have completed 3 years of training in a residency program after medical school, learning about the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of adult illness.
We are different than "Family Physicians" and "GP's" in that we focus only on adults--those doctors also deliver babies and treat children.
We deal with a full spectrum of medical problems: - from the common to the unusual
We treat a range of patient ages: - from teenagers through the elderly
We can work in a variety of settings including: - clinics, offices, hospitals, nursing homes and make house calls
We sometimes work as consultants providing recommendations to other doctors such as surgeons and psychiatrists.
Some of us provide primary care, others subspecialize in specific areas such as: cardiology, gastroenterology, oncology, endocrinology, pulmonology, infectious diseases, rheumatology, nephrology and others.