Internal Medicine - Education and Training of Internists

Education and Training of Internists

The training and career pathways for internists vary considerably across the world.

First, they must receive the "entry-level" education required of any medical practitioner in the relevant jurisdiction. The entry-level for medical education programs are tertiary-level courses, undertaken at a medical school attached to a university.

Programs that require previous undergraduate education are usually four or five years in length. Hence, gaining a basic medical education may typically take eight years, depending on jurisdiction and university. Following completion of entry-level training, newly graduated medical practitioners are often required to undertake a period of supervised practice before the licensure, or registration, is granted, typically one or two years. This period may be referred to as "internship", "conditional registration", or "foundation programme". Then, doctors may finally follow specialty training in internal medicine if they wish, typically being selected to training programs through competition. In North America, this period of postgraduate training is referred to as residency training, followed by an optional fellowship if the internist decides to train in a subspecialty. In Commonwealth countries, during that training period in Internal Medicine, trainees are often called senior house officers, and advance to registrar grade when they undergo a compulsory subspecialty training whilst commonly continuing service provision in the main speciality.