Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Why doesn't the American College of Physicians just merge with AAFP and get it over with?
The American College of Physicians has for some time been complicit with an agenda to eliminate Internal Medicine as a unique specialty. Retired Doc offers the latest absurd example. General Internal Medicine is on the way out. It's about pay in part, but it's mainly about loss of professional identity.
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2 comments:
I don't think that internal medicine is going over a cliff yet. The ACP is trying to advocate for its members, like every other medical specialty society. Although I am a specialist whose interests conflict with ACP, I still belong to the latter because I think the organization an important voice for the public and the profession. www.MDWhistleblower.blogspot.com
Well, I love the field of internal medicine and can see the decline in this specialty in my country ( I'm from India) and appreciate your pain. People seem to be forgetting that IM is a specialty--in itself. For many it's a stepping stone to careers in one of the many specialties.
A couple of years Dr. Nancy Lee Haris wrote this in NEJM when taking over as the editor of Case Records of Massachusetts General Hospital
" Now, at the turn of the 21st century, advances in diagnostic techniques mean that very few cases are real diagnostic mysteries. Furthermore, advances in treatment methods mean that physicians are now more focused on formulating appropriate treatment plans than they are on formulating differential diagnoses. These changes in the practice of medicine mean that cases involving diagnostic mysteries suitable for the traditional CPCs are becoming more and more esoteric and less relevant to practice."
Is the illusion that there is nothing that can't be diagnosed with technology going to knock down this specialty ? Or, following computer printed protocols be an extension of evidence based medicine ?
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