INTERNAL MEDICINE

Internal medicine is diagnostic medicine.

The internal medicine specialist is therefore a clinician capable of making a diagnosis by examining the patient. He or she is called an internist. The internist takes charge of the patient as a whole.

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The internist specializes in diseases that are difficult to identify, diseases that affect several organs, and rare diseases such as vasculitis, Wegener's granulomatosis, Horton's disease, pseudo-rheumatoid arthritis, periarteritis nodosa, microscopic polyangiitis, cryoglobulinemia, Behçet's disease and others.

 

The internist is interested in all autoimmune diseases, such as disseminated lupus erythematosus, Gougerot-Sjögren syndrome, anti-phospholipid syndrome, myositis, systemic scleroderma, organ-specific autoimmune diseases, Still's disease, inflammatory digestive diseases, celiac disease, etc...

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The internist also deals with amyloidosis, sarcoidosis, uveitis and mastocytosis.

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The internist is also the reference practitioner for the assessment of adenopathies of unclear origin. He is also involved in long-term fever episodes, etc.

The internal medicine specialist works in collaboration with many colleagues: family physicians, cardiologists, oncologists, endocrinologists, infectiologists, hematologists, nephrologists, rheumatologists, ophthalmologists, dermatologists, nuclear medicine specialists, radiologists, neurologists, psychiatrists and many others.
 
The internist is also the doctor who performs "check-ups", in which case he or she focuses on preventive medicine.

If necessary, he or she refers patients to referral centers.

As a private practitioner, the internal medicine specialist performs check-ups on an outpatient basis, avoiding days and costs of hospitalization. In some cases, however, hospitalization remains indispensable.

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