An internal medicine internship is part of the clinical education for students in healthcare. It exposes them to the field of internal medicine and teaches them to manage adult illnesses. The internship can take place in a hospital or outpatient setting, and students learn valuable skills such as patient interaction and treatment planning.
An internship in internal medicine is part of the clinical education of students in certain areas of healthcare. People studying to become doctors, osteopathic doctors and medical assistants can participate in internal medicine internships as part of their training programs. The internship exposes students to the field of internal medicine, providing information that can help them decide whether they want to pursue this career. Students learn to manage adult illnesses, many of which affect multiple body systems. Although an internship in internal medicine often takes place in a hospital setting, in other cases students may undertake this educational experience in an outpatient setting.
One of the main goals of an internship in internal medicine is to expose students to the discipline of internal medicine and help them decide if this might be a field of study they want to pursue. Internal medicine focuses on providing general health care to adults. Physicians studying internal medicine may be general practitioners and care for patients in both an inpatient and outpatient setting. They could also specialize in areas such as cardiology, hematology or infectious diseases, thus helping to manage more complicated illnesses in these areas. Although physicians who study internal medicine may perform some interventional procedures, they do not perform surgery.
Generally, an internship in internal medicine can take place in a hospital setting. Often, a team of doctors and students takes care of a group of patients. The team is usually led by an attending physician, who is usually a professor or instructor associated with the medical school the students attend. During the internship, students learn how to obtain patient histories, perform physical exams, interpret laboratory data, understand the results of radiological studies, and develop plans that describe how best to treat patients. They also learn other valuable skills such as giving oral presentations and professionally interacting with real patients.
In other cases, an internship in internal medicine may take place in an outpatient setting, such as a clinic. A student can be paired with a physician, working closely with that practitioner as they see patients coming in for their clinic visits. Working in an outpatient setting teaches students how to manage chronic conditions as opposed to working in the hospital, where they learn to treat acute medical issues. Many of the other skills acquired in an outpatient internship would be similar to an inpatient experience.
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