What Is an Internist, and How Is That Different from a Family Doctor?
The short answer
An internist is a physician trained in internal medicine — the specialty devoted to the prevention, diagnosis, and ongoing care of conditions in adults. A family physician is trained in family medicine, a specialty built to care for patients of all ages, from newborns through old age, often including obstetrics. Both can serve as an adult's primary care doctor. The difference is scope: internists go deep on adult medicine; family physicians go broad across the whole family.
The word "internal" throws people off. It does not mean surgery or anything invasive — historically it referred to physicians who focused on the internal workings of the body rather than on surgical treatment. Internists are sometimes called "doctors for adults," and the specialty society that represents them in the United States is the American College of Physicians, which publishes the clinical guidelines many internists practice by.
How internists train
After medical school, an internist completes a residency in internal medicine, spending those years exclusively on adult patients — in clinics, hospital wards, and intensive care. Family medicine residents split their training across pediatrics, adult medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, and other areas, because their patients will span every age.
A physician who finishes internal medicine residency and goes straight into practice is a general internist. Many others continue into fellowship training in a subspecialty: cardiology, gastroenterology, endocrinology, nephrology, pulmonology, rheumatology, infectious disease, and others. That's why your cardiologist and your primary care internist share a common foundation — both started as internists. If you want plain-language background on the kinds of conditions these subspecialties handle, the National Institutes of Health maintains reference libraries such as NIDDK's health information pages for diabetes, digestive, and kidney conditions and NHLBI's health topics for heart, lung, blood, and sleep conditions.
Other titles you'll see on the door
- Hospitalist — an internist (usually) who practices only in the hospital, caring for admitted patients. If you're hospitalized, a hospitalist may direct your care and then hand you back to your regular doctor at discharge.
- Med-peds physician — trained in a combined internal medicine and pediatrics residency; boarded in both.
- Nurse practitioners and physician assistants — licensed clinicians who commonly work in primary care practices alongside physicians. Their training path is different from a physician's; many practices will tell you plainly how visits are divided if you ask.
- Geriatrician — an internist or family physician with additional training focused on older adults.
Choosing between an internist and a family physician
There is no universally correct answer, and this site won't pretend there is. What you can do is ask concrete questions when picking a practice:
- Do you want one practice for the whole household, children included? That points toward family medicine.
- Are your health needs those of an adult with several ongoing conditions? Many people in that situation choose an internist.
- Does the practice have same-day visit availability, a patient portal, and hospital affiliation you can reach?
- Is the clinician accepting new patients under your insurance, and who covers when they're away?
Whichever you choose, the encyclopedia entries at MedlinePlus, maintained by the National Library of Medicine, are a reliable plain-language companion for looking up the terms and conditions that come up in your visits. And once you've chosen, arriving prepared matters more than the initials after the name — our checkup preparation guide covers exactly what to bring.