Doctor of medicine profession (MD)

A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G
• H
• I
• J
• K
• L
• M
• N
• O
• P
• R
• S
• T
• U
• V
• W
• X
• Y
• Z

Types of health care providers

(Page 4)

By 1930, nearly all medical schools required a liberal arts degree for admission and provided a 3- to 4-year graded curriculum in medicine and surgery. Many states also required candidates who wanted to get their medical license to complete a 1-year internship in a hospital setting in addition to holding a degree from a recognized medical school.

American doctors did not begin to specialize until the middle of the 19th century. People who objected to specialization said that "specialties operated unfairly toward the general practitioner, implying that he is incompetent to properly treat certain classes of diseases." They also said specialization tended "to degrade the general practitioner in the view of the public." However, as the knowledge in medicine continued to grow and many doctors chose to do more of what they were interested in and good at, specialization became inevitable.

---

---

Economics also played an important role, because specialists typically earned higher incomes than the generalist physicians. The debates between specialists and generalists continue, and have recently been fueled by issues related to modern health care reform.

Medicine was the first of the professions to require licensing. State laws on medical licensing outlined the "diagnosis" and "treatment" of human conditions in medicine. Any individual who wanted to diagnose or treat as part of the profession could be charged with "practicing medicine without a license." As a result of the strict licensing laws issued by the various medical societies, conventional Western medicine was able to establish itself in American health care.

SCOPE OF PRACTICE

The practice of medicine includes the diagnosis, treatment, correction, advisement, or prescription for any human disease, ailment, injury, infirmity, deformity, pain, or other condition, physical or mental, real or imaginary.

PRACTICE SETTINGS

MDs may be found within a wide range of practice settings, including private practices, group practices, hospitals, health maintenance organizations, teaching facilities, and public health organizations.