RESUMO
Our hospital comprises nine departments of internal medicine that specialize in different organs, and the Department of General Internal Medicine is one of these departments. The inpatient department has 30 beds for providing medical care, and education is provided for junior and senior residents. We examined the diagnoses in 593 cases (289 men, 304 women ; mean age, 64.2±21.2 years old) who were hospitalized in the Department of General Internal Medicine at this hospital between April 2007 and March 2008. The major diseases included pneumonia, 111 cases ; urinary tract infections, 44 cases ; infectious enteritis, 34 cases ; bronchial asthma, 24 cases ; fever of unknown origin, 12 cases ; heart failure, 11 cases ; viral infections 9 cases, diverticulitis, 8 cases ; malignant lymphoma, 7 cases ; infectious mononucleosis, 7 cases ; polymyalgia rheumatica, 6 cases ; and others. In order to provide diagnoses and treatments for cases in which no diagnosis could not be obtained on the first outpatient visit, for example, it is necessary to have a ward for general internal medicine as a location for providing medical care that is not limited to any specialized field.