The First School of Clinical Medicine

1. Overview
In the field of clinical medicine, internal medicine is an important and comprehensive discipline encompassing pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment either of any particular organ system, or of the body as a whole, which features non-invasive or mild invasive methods. As a broad and integrated discipline, internal medicine is the basis of other clinical specialties. What internal medicine covers tends to be general for theory and practice of clinical medicine, which lays consolidated foundation for acquiring and possessing knowledge of other clinical specialties.
2. Theoretical basis
Internal medicine is composed of diagnostics and internal medicine. Based on basic medicine theories and combined with clinical epidemiological methodology, internists obtain technical proficiency through practicing to improve clinical research and work, make scientific decisions and facilitate the development of modern internal medicine towards evidence-based medicine.
3. Study scope
With scientific approaches of modern medicine, internists probe into pathogenesis, mechanism, clinical manifestation, diagnosis, differential diagnosis, treatment and prevention, of which diagnosis and treatment are emphasized. Internal medicine usually concluded diseases of respiratory system, circulation system, gastrointestinal system, urinary system, hematological system, endocrine system, metabolism, connective tissue, rheumatoid and other subspecialties such as diseases caused by physical and chemical factors.
Internal medicine has been rated national key discipline cultivation site, key discipline of Jiangsu Province, model course of bilingual education program and fine-selected course of Nanjing Medical University. The key research directions of this discipline are 1) pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases; 2) pathogenesis and treatment of multiple organ failure; 3) molecular, immune and clinical research of endocrine diseases and 4) pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of malignancy. Molecular biology and systems biology have become the areas of research foci and future directions. Meanwhile, new diagnostic techniques have been applied to improve the accuracy of clinical diagnosis. With imaging tests including C-ray and CT scan, not only is accuracy increased, but also quantitative measurement is integrated. Endoscope technique has made it realized that every cavity of human body can be reached to help physicians diagnose under direct vision of high definition. The two techniques are the typical examples symbolizing that auxiliary examinations have entered the age of high sensibility and ultra-quantification. It is with in-depth studies on new drugs and treatment that therapeutic efficacy and prognosis of patients are improved and the occurring rate of adverse effects is lowered and
4. Related disciplines
Internal medicine has closely linked to molecular biology, pathophysiology, pathological anatomy, medical microbiology, immunology, medical genetics and phamocology.