Symptomatology is not strictly speaking a medical specialty, but a discipline of medicine which consists in studying the symptoms of diseases.

If the term “symptomatology” is mainly used to designate all the symptoms characteristic of a pathology, it also corresponds to the study of symptoms. The word comes from the Greek symptoma (“what happens”) and logos (“speech”, “science”).

Strictly speaking, this is not a medical specialty: all doctors do symptomatology, since it is the examination of the clinical picture and the information given by the patient on his feelings (burns, itching, etc. ) that allows them to establish a diagnosis and prognosis. This scientific method, which consists of observing symptoms to identify a disease, is taught in medical schools within the framework of a discipline bearing a more learned name: medical semiology. These courses are most often given by device (cardiovascular, pneumological, neurological, digestive, etc.), but some medical specialties require extensive knowledge of the symptoms, since they take care of the general condition of patients. : general practitioners, emergency physicians and internists. The latter, like Dr. House in the eponymous series, are specialists in complex cases linked to rare diseases or involving several pathologies.

Symptomatology is also the act of listing all the symptoms of a new pathology (during the emergence of Covid-19, for example). This is also what researchers do when they try to find more specific signs or precursors of a disease, which would help detect and manage it earlier. Identifying an abnormality in medical images of the brains of healthy patients, before they develop a neurodegenerative disease, could thus help put in place preventive measures. 

A specialist in internal medicine, this doctor is interested in all the internal organs of the body (digestive, respiratory, urinary system, etc.). Versatile, he is the specialist in complex cases. It takes care of patients with a pathology affecting the whole body (autoimmune diseases, diabetes, pathologies linked to the environment, immunodeficiency, etc.) or several pathologies affecting several organs simultaneously, in order to offer them a complete treatment. adequate. This is why it is often found in the intensive care units of hospitals.

General practitioners also refer their patients to the internist doctor when they are unable to interpret their symptoms. His broad-spectrum knowledge of symptomatology, in several medical specialties, allows him to diagnose polypathologies, but also rare diseases, or even diseases that had disappeared in France but which are now making a comeback (syphilis, scurvy, scurvy , etc.). 

Relying on the biological and imaging examinations provided by the doctors consulted before him, but also on his own observations, the internist doctor studies all the symptoms and clinical signs to identify the pathology (s) in question.

If the symptoms lead the internist to diagnose a polypathology or a pathology affecting the whole organism, he can take care of it. On the other hand, if he identifies a disease that concerns only one device, he directs him to the specialist who will be most able to take care of it. Internal medicine is in fact at the interface between general medicine and other specialties: either the internist intervenes between the two, or he coordinates the intervention of several specialists around the same patient.

The internist is also very involved in the training of future doctors, sharing his knowledge with them through courses or internships in medical semiology.

Like general practitioners, internists are not cheap doctors who do not specialize. These are specialties as such, which require, like all other specialties, to obtain a diploma of specialized studies (DES), after 9 to 12 years of study and internship.

In general, patients are referred to internal medicine by another doctor (general practitioner, emergency doctor, etc.). It is therefore necessary to remember to bring the letter that the latter sends to the specialist to the specialist to present him / her the situation, as well as all the examinations that have already been carried out within the framework of your symptomatology (imaging tests, biological analyzes, electrocardiogram, etc.). .). If he considers it necessary, after having studied these documents and having auscultated you, the internist will prescribe more.

There is no particular risk in consulting this specialist.