US Universities

100K US Universities, Schools and Colleges

How to become General Internal Medicine Physician in 2024

General Internal Medicine Physician Diagnose and provide nonsurgical treatment for a wide range of diseases and injuries of internal organ systems. Provide care mainly for adults and adolescents, and are based primarily in an outpatient care setting.

General Internal Medicine Physician is Also Know as

In different settings, General Internal Medicine Physician is titled as

  • Doctor
  • Gastroenterologist
  • General Internal Medicine Physician
  • General Internist
  • Internal Medicine Doctor
  • Internal Medicine Physician (IM Physician)
  • Internist
  • Medical Doctor (MD)
  • Physician
  • Primary Care Physician

Education and Training of General Internal Medicine Physician

General Internal Medicine Physician is categorized in Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed

Experience Required for General Internal Medicine Physician

Extensive skill, knowledge, and experience are needed for these occupations. Many require more than five years of experience. For example, surgeons must complete four years of college and an additional five to seven years of specialized medical training to be able to do their job.

Education Required for General Internal Medicine Physician

Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).

Degrees Related to General Internal Medicine Physician

Training Required for General Internal Medicine Physician

Employees may need some on-the-job training, but most of these occupations assume that the person will already have the required skills, knowledge, work-related experience, and/or training.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to General Internal Medicine Physician in different industries are

What Do General Internal Medicine Physician do?

  • Treat internal disorders, such as hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, or problems of the lung, brain, kidney, or gastrointestinal tract.
  • Analyze records, reports, test results, or examination information to diagnose medical condition of patient.
  • Prescribe or administer medication, therapy, and other specialized medical care to treat or prevent illness, disease, or injury.
  • Provide and manage long-term, comprehensive medical care, including diagnosis and nonsurgical treatment of diseases, for adult patients in an office or hospital.
  • Manage and treat common health problems, such as infections, influenza or pneumonia, as well as serious, chronic, and complex illnesses, in adolescents, adults, and the elderly.
  • Monitor patients' conditions and progress and reevaluate treatments as necessary.
  • Collect, record, and maintain patient information, such as medical history, reports, or examination results.
  • Make diagnoses when different illnesses occur together or in situations where the diagnosis may be obscure.
  • Explain procedures and discuss test results or prescribed treatments with patients.
  • Advise patients and community members concerning diet, activity, hygiene, and disease prevention.
  • Refer patient to medical specialist or other practitioner when necessary.
  • Immunize patients to protect them from preventable diseases.
  • Advise surgeon of a patient's risk status and recommend appropriate intervention to minimize risk.
  • Direct and coordinate activities of nurses, students, assistants, specialists, therapists, and other medical staff.
  • Provide consulting services to other doctors caring for patients with special or difficult problems.
  • Operate on patients to remove, repair, or improve functioning of diseased or injured body parts and systems.
  • Plan, implement, or administer health programs in hospitals, businesses, or communities for prevention and treatment of injuries or illnesses.
  • Conduct research to develop or test medications, treatments, or procedures to prevent or control disease or injury.
  • Prepare government or organizational reports on birth, death, and disease statistics, workforce evaluations, or the medical status of individuals.

Qualities of Good General Internal Medicine Physician

  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.

Tools Used by General Internal Medicine Physician

  • Adult Magill forceps
  • Angiocaths
  • Auditory testing equipment
  • Automated external defibrillators AED
  • Blood collection syringes
  • Colposcopes
  • Cryosurgical units
  • Dermal curettes
  • Desktop computers
  • Dictation equipment
  • Dressing forceps
  • Ear curettes
  • Ear forceps
  • Electrocardiography EKG machines
  • Electronic blood pressure units
  • Electrosurgery units
  • Flexible fiberoptic endoscopes
  • Glucometers
  • Holter monitors
  • Laboratory specimen containers
  • Laptop computers
  • Manual blood pressure units
  • Mechanical stethoscopes
  • Medical examination protective gloves
  • Medical lasers
  • Medical tuning forks
  • Microscope slides
  • Mosquito clamps
  • Nasogastric tubes
  • Neurological hammers
  • Operating scissors
  • Ophthalmoscopes
  • Orthopedic splints
  • Otoscopes
  • Personal computers
  • Personal digital assistants PDA
  • Pulse oximeters
  • Snellen eye charts
  • Spirometers
  • Splinter forceps
  • Suction catheters
  • Suction machines
  • Surgical scalpels
  • Suture forceps
  • Suture scissors
  • Tablet computers
  • Ultrasound bone density scanners
  • Ultrasound imaging scanners
  • Vaginal exam speculas
  • Valve mask resuscitators
  • Vision screeners

Technology Skills required for General Internal Medicine Physician

  • Allscripts Professional EHR
  • Billing software
  • Brickell Research Brickell Medical Office
  • ChartWare EMR
  • e-MDs software
  • e-MDs topsE&M Coder
  • eClinicalWorks EHR software
  • Email software
  • Epic Systems
  • Epocrates
  • GE Healthcare Centricity EMR
  • Greenway Health PrimeSuite
  • Med Math
  • MedcomSoft Record
  • Medical reference software
  • MEDITECH software
  • MicroFocus GroupWise
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Misys Healthcare Systems Mysis Tiger
  • Practice management software PMS
  • Practice Partner Total Practice Partner
  • Scheduling software
  • SOAPware EMR
  • Web browser software