Archive for 'Internal Medicine' Category

HgbA1c and Diabetes Diagnosis – 2010 ADA Practice Guidelines

A summary of ADA’s 2010 practice guidelines (Diabetes Care. December 29, 2009; January 2010 Supplement): The American Diabetes Association (ADA) revised clinical practice recommendations for diabetes diagnosis promote hemoglobin A1c (A1c) as a faster, easier diagnostic test according to the revised evidence-based guidelines, an A1c score of 5.7% to 6.4% indicates prediabetes, and an A1c [...]

Family or Internal Medicine?

Does family medicine training close doors? Some argue pro and some con. When examined objectively, family medicine opens many doors but does close some doors. Choosing family medicine clearly leads to primary care or a closely related field. Internal medicine still often leads to subspecialty training. Many more internists become hospitalists than do family physicians. [...]

How to be an Internist

What you have here is how I break down every possible illness known to man. By Organ System. Looking at things by organ system is the first way to conquer disease evaluation and management. By Category of Disease Process. Is it infectious? Is it autoimmune? Is it hormonal? Is it traumatic? Is it genetic? Is [...]

Importance of Physical Exam

A telling vignette from ValJones @ Dr. Val and The Voice of Reason: One intern presented a case of a patient with “fever of unknown origin” (FUO). This particular diagnosis will make any internal medicine specialist delirious with curiosity and excitement, since it means that all the previous attempts at discerning the cause of the [...]