Daily Routine of a Doctor of Internal Medicine

Many college students and those looking for the right doctor wonder what the daily routine of a doctor of internal medicine is like. An internal medicine doctor or internist helps to diagnose adult patients with various ailments so they are often trying to solve a puzzle of what is medically wrong with an individual. 

A doctor of internal medicine could study in one of 13 subcategories and his or her day could vary widely from one to the next. An internist will often see several of their adult patients, first thing in the morning, at a hospital they are affiliated with on their daily rounds. Their daily rounds may begin as early as 5 or 6 am so that they can fit everything they need to do into their day.

Sometimes on daily rounds at the hospital, an internist may have several residents or students follow them if the internist is part of a teaching hospital. They may also have one or two students follow them throughout the day to observe or help as part of their grade.

The major part of an internist day is taken up by meeting with patients. The doctor uses her education to help diagnose and then prescribe treatments for their patients. Their job, what they want to do, is make people feel better. Sometimes this process takes a while and more intense procedures such as blood lab work, X-rays or other radiological tests or various hospital procedures that draw out the conclusion longer than a patient or the doctor would like.

At times, an internal medicine doctor may be called upon by a colleague to help solve a problem with a patient. They will either consult over the phone, through letters or email and sometimes in person at a hospital with the patient present. 

If an internist cannot solve the mystery of what is ailing her patient, she may have to refer him or her to a specialist in that field after exhausting all her possibilities.