[The crisis of internal medicine].

The rapid technological progress in medicine has lead to a better physiopathologic and etiological knowledge of adult diseases, producing a fragmentation of internal medicine and a great development of its subspecialties. Furthermore, specialization grants a professional, scientific and academic status. Contrarywise technological enrichment has impoverished the human relationship of clinical practice. The training at the Medical School has a great responsibility towards General Internal Medicine, and the technical capacity of teachers should be revised. The practical tutorial teaching at the hospital should be accomplished by Internists with a general clinical orientation. Outpatient clinics should be incorporated as places where a more clinical and less technological medicine could be taught. Internship should be a period in which General Internal Medicine should be valorized, continuing in post-graduate training and continuous teaching. General Internal Medicine is going through a crisis; Medical Schools and the Medical society have the responsibility to overcome it.