The present and future status of internal medicine in Poland and in the world.

939 detailed divisions among different subdisciplines of clinical medical sciences, dealing with patholo‐ gy and treatment of specific tissues and organs. Therefore, there are specialists with a narrow focus on the pathology of “hair or big toe”. These decentralizing tendencies (dividing the clinical medical sciences into narrow specializations) are accompanied by efforts to unify once again the general diagnostic and therapeutic treat‐ ment of an individual person, perceived as an in‐ tegral whole, by a doctor who, apart from general knowledge (and in many cases specialist knowl‐ edge in some fields) of pathology, is also aware of the social and environmental conditions of a given patient. The old clinical division of medical disciplines into internal diseases, pediatric medicine, gyne‐ cology, and surgery enabled a more detailed and orderly view on the knowledge of main human health problems. Maintaining this division, as a starting point to deepen the knowledge and ex‐ perience by the doctors learning about particular problems concerning organ pathologies in these specific subdivisions of medical sciences, seems to be a necessity. Maintaining the status of the basic clinical medical disciplines: internal diseases, pediatric medicine, gynecology, and surgery despite consid‐ erable advances in specific medical subdisciplines seems to be mandatory, because of the following consequences: 1) didactical (teaching of medical staff); 2) organizational (day care and specialist/ stationary care profiles); 3) social (consideration of the entire health situation of a particular pa‐ tient, and thus avoidance of the harmful phar‐ macological and medical interactions).