[Political issues in internal medicine in Europe].

What will be the future of Internal Medicine in Europe? Because of rapidly growing concerns regarding the position of Internal Medicine in many European countries, the European Federation of Internal Medicine (EFIM) has established a working group to analyze the situation. Being well aware of the variation of working practices in the different countries, the members of the group used an "all-European" approach to answer the following questions: -- Are there problems for Internal Medicine, what problems and why? -- Why do health care systems of the European countries need Internal Medicine? -- Why do the patients need Internal Medicine? -- What needs to be done? Internal Medicine is the modern, clinical and scientific medical discipline taking care of adult patients with one or more complex, acute or chronic illnesses. Internal Medicine is the cornerstone of integrated health care delivery service that is needed today. Decision-makers in politics and hospitals, insurers, journalists and the general public need a better understanding of what Internal Medicine can offer to the health care systems and to the individual patient.