Internists offer comprehensive care for the adult population, from age 18 through the end of life. As primary care physicians, they are concerned with the patient’s general well being. They offer preventative health care and disease management. They provide complete physical exams, diagnosis and treatment of common ailments, illnesses, diseases and their complications. These diagnosticians are experts in handling severe chronic illnesses and situations where several different illnesses may be present at the same time.
They refer their patients to appropriate specialists as needed, and coordinate their care with those specialists, including following their patients through hospital care. Geriatric care and clinical research studies are among the specialties represented in the Internal Medicine department.
Thomas Laselle, M.D., who has practiced internal medicine with an emphasis on geriatrics at Rockwood Clinic since 1978, was named the national 2007 Internist of the Year by the American College of Physicians.