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A physician, medical practitioner, medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a professional who practises medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining, or restoring health through the study, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of disease, injury, and other physical and mental impairments. Physicians may focus their practice on certain disease categories, types of patients, and methods of treatment—known as specialities—or they may assume responsibility for the provision of continuing and comprehensive medical care to individuals, families, and communities—known as general practice. Medical practice properly requires both a detailed knowledge of the academic disciplines, such as anatomy and physiology, underlying diseases and their treatment—the science of medicine—and also a decent competence in its applied practice—the art or craft of medicine.
Internal medicine or general internal medicine is the medical specialty dealing with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of internal diseases. Physicians specializing in internal medicine are called internists, or physicians in Commonwealth nations. Internists are skilled in the management of patients who have undifferentiated or multi-system disease processes. Internists care for hospitalized and ambulatory patients and may play a major role in teaching and research. Internal medicine and family medicine are often confused as equivalent in the Commonwealth nations.
Hospital medicine is a medical specialty that exists in some countries as a branch of internal or family medicine, dealing with the care of acutely ill hospitalized patients. Physicians whose primary professional focus is caring for hospitalized patients only while they are in the hospital are called hospitalists. Originating in the United States, this type of medical practice has extended into Australia and Canada. The vast majority of physicians who refer to themselves as hospitalists focus their practice upon hospitalized patients. Hospitalists are not necessarily required to have separate board certification in hospital medicine.
Family medicine (FM), formerly family practice (FP), is a medical specialty devoted to comprehensive health care for people of all ages. The specialist is named a family physician or family doctor. In Europe, the discipline is often referred to as general practice and a practitioner as a general practice doctor or GP. This name emphasizes the holistic nature of this speciality, as well as its roots in the family. Family practice is a division of primary care that provides continuing and comprehensive health care for the individual and family across all ages, genders, diseases, and parts of the body. Family physicians are often primary care physicians. It is based on knowledge of the patient in the context of the family and the community, emphasizing disease prevention and health promotion. According to the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA), the aim of family medicine is to provide personal, comprehensive, and continuing care for the individual in the context of the family and the community. The issues of values underlying this practice are usually known as primary care ethics.
A medical specialty is a branch of medical practice that is focused on a defined group of patients, diseases, skills, or philosophy. Examples include children (paediatrics), cancer (oncology), laboratory medicine (pathology), or primary care. After completing medical school, physicians or surgeons usually further their medical education in a specific specialty of medicine by completing a multiple-year residency to become a specialist.
Adolescent medicine is a medical subspecialty that focuses on care of patients who are in the adolescent period of development. This period begins at puberty and lasts until growth has stopped, at which time adulthood begins. Typically, patients in this age range will be in the last years of elementary school up until high school. In developed nations, the psychosocial period of adolescence is extended both by an earlier start, as the onset of puberty begins earlier, and a later end, as patients require more years of education or training before they reach economic independence from their parents.
The American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) is a non-profit, independent medical association of American physicians who practice in family medicine and its sub-specialties. Founded in February 1969 as the American Board of Family Practice (ABFP), the group was the 20th medical specialty to be recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties and was formed out of a need to encourage medical school graduates to enter general practice. It adopted its current name in 2005.
Maintenance of Certification (MOC) is a recently implemented and controversial process of physician certification maintenance through one of the 24 approved medical specialty boards of the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) and the 18 approved medical specialty boards of the American Osteopathic Association (AOA). The MOC process is controversial within the medical community, with proponents claiming that it is a voluntary program that improves physician knowledge and demonstrates a commitment to lifelong learning. Critics claim that MOC is an expensive, burdensome, involuntary and clinically irrelevant process that has been created primarily as a money-making scheme for the ABMS and the AOA.
Disaster medicine as a specialty and mindset was not only a reaction from September 11, 2001, but to the numerous subsequent events that seemed to all too quickly follow: random anthrax attacks, the SARS outbreak, the New York City blackout in the summer of 2003, the December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, the Pakistan earthquake of 2005, tumultuous hurricane seasons in 2004 and 2005 and, of course, terrorist attacks throughout the world — all against a backdrop of conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The medical establishment in North America and the United Kingdom began forming study and discussion groups in disaster medicine. In some cases, the medical schools were on the front lines of this movement. Meanwhile, courses and fellowships in disaster medicine related fields at universities in London, Paris, Brussels, Bordeaux and the United States have been in existence since the early 1980s.
Throughout this period, incomplete and faltering medical responses to disaster events made it increasingly apparent that federal, state and local emergency management organizations were in need of a mechanism to identify qualified physicians in the face of a global upturn in the rate of natural and man-made disasters. Many physicians who volunteer at disasters have a bare minimum of knowledge in disaster medicine and often pose a hazard to themselves and the response effort because they have little or no field response training. It was against this backdrop that the American Academy of Disaster Medicine (AADM) and the American Board of Disaster Medicine (ABODM) were formed for the purpose of scholarly exchange and education in Disaster Medicine as well as the development of an examination demonstrating excellence towards Board Certification in this new specialty.
Board certification is the process by which a physician or other professional demonstrates a mastery of basic knowledge and skills through written, practical, or simulator-based testing.
The American Board of Physician Specialties (ABPS), the official certifying body for the American Association of Physician Specialists (AAPS) is a non-profit umbrella organization for sixteen medical specialty boards that certifies and re-certifies physicians in fourteen medical specialties in the United States and Canada. The ABPS is one of three organizations overseeing Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) and Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.) certification in the United States. The ABPS assists its Member Boards in developing and implementing educational and professional standards to evaluate and certify physician specialists. It is recognized by the U.S. Department of Labor as well as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
The American Association of Physician Specialists, Inc. (AAPS) is a 501(c)(6) not-for-profit organization founded in 1950, with headquarters in Tampa, Florida. The AAPS was first organized to provide specialty certification for physicians who had obtained advanced training in various areas of medical specialty. AAPS was the first organization of its kind to accept both M.D. and D.O. physicians as full members.
Established in 1939, the American Osteopathic Association Bureau of Osteopathic Specialists (AOABOS) is a non-profit umbrella organization for 18 medical specialty boards in the United States. Along with the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) and the American Board of Physician Specialties (ABPS), the AOABOS is one of three leading entities that oversees physician board certification in the United States. The AOABOS assists its Member Boards in developing and implementing educational and professional standards to evaluate and certify physician specialists.
Hospice and palliative medicine is a formal subspecialty of medicine in the United States that focuses on symptom management, relief of suffering and end-of-life care.
Physicians in the United States are doctors who practice medicine for the human body. They are an important part of health care in the United States. The vast majority of physicians in the US have a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree, though some have a DO or MBBS.
The American Osteopathic Board of Neurology and Psychiatry (AOBNP) is an organization that provides board certification to qualified Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.) who specialize in disorders of the nervous system (neurologists) and to qualified Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine who specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders (psychiatrists).
The American Osteopathic Board of Anesthesiology (AOBA) is an organization that provides board certification to qualified Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.) who specialize in the administration of anesthetic agents and perioperative medicine (anesthesiologists). The board is one 16 medical specialty certifying boards of the American Osteopathic Association Bureau of Osteopathic Specialists approved by the American Osteopathic Association (AOA), and was established in 1956. As of October 2019, 720 osteopathic anesthesiologists held active certification with the AOBA. Currently 85 Diplomates have subspecialty certification in Pain Management, 13 in Critical Care Medicine, and 20 in Pediatric Anesthesiology.
The American Osteopathic Board of Pediatrics (AOBP) is an organization that provides board certification to qualified Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.) who specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of medical diseases in infants, children, and adolescents (pediatricians). The board is one 18 medical specialty certifying boards of the American Osteopathic Association Bureau of Osteopathic Specialists approved by the American Osteopathic Association (AOA), and was established in 1940. As of December 2011, 477 osteopathic pediatricians held active certification with the AOBP. Fellows of the AOBP are eligible for membership in the American Academy of Pediatrics along with fellows of the American Board of Pediatrics.
Post-Hospitalist Medicine is the discipline concerned with the medical care of patients residing in Post-Acute, Long-Term Care, Rehabilitation and Assisted Living Facilities. The Physicians whose primary professional focus is the post-hospital medical care of these patients are called Post-Hospitalists.
References
- ↑ "Hospital Medicine - American Board of Physician Specialties". abpsus.org. Retrieved 10 February 2014.
- ↑ "SHM retracts message about ABHM certification". healthleadersmedia.com. Archived from the original on 21 February 2014. Retrieved 10 February 2014.
- ↑ "Formation of the American Board of Hospital Medicine". aif.com. Archived from the original on 2014-02-23. Retrieved 10 February 2014.
- ↑ "Watch American Board of Hospital Medicine Video". ovguide.com. Archived from the original on 22 February 2014. Retrieved 10 February 2014.