Internal medicine in the 21st century: Back to the future

Abstract

Healthcare systems face multiple challenges arising from demographic factors (population aging) and epidemiological factors (rise of chronic diseases and patients with multimorbidity) as well as threats to their financial sustainability when maintaining equitable access to medical and technological advances. Current healthcare models, based on specialized medical care, lead to fragmented care that can be harmful to the patient and is inefficient for the system due to the overuse of redundant, low-value medical acts. Internal medicine is the hospital-centered general medical specialty par excellence, providing a comprehensive and holistic vision that is centered on the patient and not on the disease. Internists should be the leading physicians in the hospital setting for complex patients with or those with an uncertain diagnosis. Internists must play a key role, as hospitalists do, in the continued care of acute patients hospitalized for medical or surgical diseases, establishing shared care models in multidisciplinary teams. Likewise, to guarantee continuity of care for chronic patients, internists must establish mechanisms for collaboration with primary care and nursing, participating in the development of new out-of-hospital care models that use the available technological resources. Internal medicine should play a leading role in graduate and postgraduate medical education to promote a holistic vision among medical students and residents in medical subspecialties.