Internal Medicine Vs. Family Medicine | What’s the Difference?
Whether you’re choosing a provider or handling a referral, you may be wondering what’s the difference between internal vs. family medicine.
Typically, internal medicine practices differ from family practices in the scope, training the doctors receive, and patient care they provide. Let’s take a more in-depth look at these differences.
History of Internal Medicine
As scientific knowledge began increasing in the late 1800s, internal medicine grew in popularity by applying these new discoveries to the practice of medicine.
Surprisingly, scientific-led approaches were not common at this time. However, enterprising internists began using this scientific knowledge to inform the work they did on a number of adult diseases.
Historically, internal medicine did not include children because pediatrics as a specialty developed to deal with children’s health concerns separately. Now, internal medicine doctors generally work with adult patients exclusively.
History of Family Medicine
Originally, family medicine arose as a way to keep patients in a general doctor’s practice. With the rise of specialties, such as pediatrics, general practice doctors saw their patients leave.
Family medicine was meant to treat the family group, rather than a specific age or type of patient. Thus, the family could all receive their care at the same place—which requires family medicine specialists to be familiar with a very wide spectrum of medical issues.
However, because most people have their children seen by pediatricians, family medicine doctors deal mostly with adults. This creates some overlap in the types of patients seen by family medicine practitioners and internal medicine practitioners, even though they do different things.
Internal Medicine Vs. Family Medicine Training
The training undergone by these two types of doctors is quite different. For instance, family medicine doctors receive three years of basic training, and then they are required to have experience with some subspecialties.
So, family medicine requires one month of gynecology, surgery, geriatric, and adult critical care. The training also requires two months each of pediatric care and musculoskeletal training. In addition, all trainees are required to have 6 months of inpatient (hospital) care experience. Most of the other training takes place at outpatient training centers.
In some aspects, internal medicine training is more extensive. While trainees complete the three years of basic training, internal medicine specialists also focus on internal medicine subspecialties. These specialties include endocrinology, rheumatology, infectious diseases.
The training also requires that internists require one year of inpatient (hospital) work in cardiology, hematology-oncology, gastroenterology or another such sub-specialty.
Furthermore, internal medicine specialists must have experience in psychiatry, dermatology, ophthalmology, gynecology, otorhinolaryngology, non-operative orthopedics, palliative medicine, sleep medicine, geriatrics, and rehabilitation medicine. This allows the internist to be fully prepared to care for medical conditions facing adults.
The Main Difference: Internal vs Family Medicine
Because of their training differences, internal medicine doctors are able to diagnose and manage most conditions adults face. Beyond this, they can be trusted to manage more complex medical situations involving more than one chronic condition.
Internists can provide a continuity of care for patients that will sometimes need in-hospital care. They are well-equipped to collaborate with the doctors who have provided care in the hospital, managing the transition. This is especially helpful to those with cancer, autoimmune diseases, and transplant patients.
Family doctors are particularly well-suited to adapting to the needs of their community. This is especially true for locations where specialists are more remote. Furthermore, family doctors can use their skills to manage the health of the entire family. Their training is very broad, which helps them see uncomplicated patients from birth to old age, if possible.
These doctors are trained to coordinate with specialists as well. So, neither doctor is “better” than the other—family doctors and internal medicine doctors are better for different patient circumstances.
Bowie Internal Medicine
The board-certified doctors at Bowie Internal Medicine are well-equipped to meet your general medical needs. Beyond this, we are capable of managing more complex issues as our doctors and nurse practitioners have specialized training in gastroenterology, cardiology, and other specialties. We believe in providing preventative care. Contact our office to make an appointment, and let us know if you have any questions.