Q from premed....what do you call this job?

[bsm]

Someone is sick, and the family doctor does not know what it is. It could be some kind of infectious disease, so the person is sent to another doctor to find out. This doctor does tests, takes blood/urine samples, etc to find out which illness this person could have.

 

I think I would need to do a specialty in internal medicine/infectious disease.

 

I want to try volunteering in such a clinic.

[micro]

This is the kind of job I would like to do in the future:

 

Someone is sick, and the family doctor does not know what it is. It could be some kind of infectious disease, so the person is sent to another doctor to find out. This doctor does tests, takes blood/urine samples, etc to find out which illness this person could have.

 

I would like to (hopefully) be that second doctor someday. I think I would need to do a specialty in internal medicine/infectious disease.

 

The problem is that I dont exactly know how this "job" fits into the whole structure of the medical field.

For example: what do you call that second doctor? where do they work? can someone name a specific example?[/B]

 

I want to try volunteering in such a clinic but I dont even know who to contact.

 

 

Thanks in advance for any info guys....I know its a pretty broad question....

 

You call that second physician Dr. House. He works at Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital in New Jersey.

[Jochi1543]

This is the kind of job I would like to do in the future:

 

Someone is sick, and the family doctor does not know what it is. It could be some kind of infectious disease, so the person is sent to another doctor to find out. This doctor does tests, takes blood/urine samples, etc to find out which illness this person could have.

 

I would like to (hopefully) be that second doctor someday. I think I would need to do a specialty in internal medicine/infectious disease.

 

Props to the response above mine...

 

 

The person who does tests and takes samples isn't a doctor, it is usually a nurse or a technician (such as phlebotomist). However, the tests are ordered by the Dr. As a family doctor, you will regularly order tests to rule out or confirm your suspicions for particular conditions, so you can still do that. However, the Dr. who gets referred to is usually a secondary or tertiary specialist. There are many different specialties, there is infectious disease, pulmonology, neurology, etc.

[A-Stark]

To follow up, infectious disease physicians don't really have a name for their occupation, except that they're internists who specialize in that field. In the hospital, they'd be known as physicians on the "ID" service.

[KennethToronto]

You call that second physician Dr. House. He works at Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital in New Jersey.

 

This is the correct answer.

[A-Stark]

He's not like any ID doc I've ever met, not least because he doesn't seem to have any kind of, you know, ID practice. And paired with nephro? Where are the dialysis and transplant patients? It always strikes me that "genius" TV characters are over-credentialed in all the more ridiculous ways.

[bsm]

You call that second physician Dr. House. He works at Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital in New Jersey.

 

This is the correct answer.

 

actually, i have heard about that show, didn't actually know what its about...but i think i'll actually try watching it now

[bsm]

To follow up, infectious disease physicians don't really have a name for their occupation, except that they're internists who specialize in that field. In the hospital, they'd be known as physicians on the "ID" service.

 

 

thanks a lot for the info!

[jdai]

Infectious disease is a subspecialty in internal medicine.

That means even just an ID doc will have had at least 3 years of general internal medicine which means dealing with heart failure, electrolyte abnormalities, liver cirrhosis, dementia/delirium, diabetes, anemia, infections, and COPD.

 

I think it's really impressive, the amount of knowledge and effort required to do any of the specialties that go through general internal medicine.

[bsm]

Infectious disease is a subspecialty in internal medicine.

That means even just an ID doc will have had at least 3 years of general internal medicine which means dealing with heart failure, electrolyte abnormalities, liver cirrhosis, dementia/delirium, diabetes, anemia, infections, and COPD.

 

I think it's really impressive, the amount of knowledge and effort required to do any of the specialties that go through general internal medicine.

 

 

 

But if you compare in terms of lenght of residency, I see that Internal medicine has a shorter initial residency, once you add in the time for subspeciality, it becomes one of the longest (eg. 3 years + 2 years for subspeciality = 5 years total).

[bsm]

Anyway, I have read a bit about the specialites. It looks like:

 

Internal medicine - infectious disease:

This doctor would deal with the patient and try to prescribe drugs/treatment for the illness.

 

Pathologist:

Would oversee and interpret the tests to try to put the puzzle together, ie. what is the illness.

[Lactic Folly]

Well, infectious diseases is closely aligned with the pathology subspecialty of medical microbiology. You can try doing more research on that, though I wouldn't get my hopes up on uncovering any dirt about power struggles.

[Madz25]

That is interesting....maybe you could say the same for any "subspecialty"

 

But if you compare in terms of lenght of residency, I see that Internal medicine has a shorter initial residency, once you add in the time for subspeciality, it becomes one of the longest (eg. 3 years + 2 years for subspeciality = 5 years total). I think there are other specialties (like surgury) that must be 5 years too right?

 

Most specialties are 5 years excepting family medicine (2 years), general pediatrics (3 years...longer if you subspecialize) and general internal medicine (3 years, longer if you subspecialize).

 

To the OP: pathologists look at actual tissue samples and make the diagnosis. For instance, when you find a suspicious lesion, a sample is taken and sent to pathology. The pathologist will figure out if it is normal, some sort of benign disease process, cancer, etc. Pathologists don't do the whole "figuring out which tests to order" thing, if that's what you're interested in.

 

Pathologists, as far as I can tell, interact the most with surgeons. There are no power struggles between pathology and infectious disease. No other doctors are trained to look at tissue samples the way pathologists are. There is no overlap between the two. Pathology is a dianostic specialty - they give you an actual diagnosis by microscopically examining tissues. Infectious disease specialists look at a patients history, physical examination, come up with a list of differential diagnoses, do appropriate additional workup, finalize diagnosis and treat. Pathologists may play a role in the "finalizing diagnosis" part, but in no way do they take over patient care.

[DddMmm]

My microbiology professors are "medical microbiologists and infectiologists" and my faculty actually offers that residency program. It's a 5 year program.