PREFACE The purpose of this course is to prepare the osteopathic student studying for the COMAT Internal Medicine Examination. Internal medicine is the study of common and uncommon adult diseases of the major organ systems of the body. The osteopathic student has the dual obligation to understand these disorders from an osteopathic and allopathic perspective so the course addresses these dualities as part of what you’ll need to learn and understand. The different organ systems in this course include the cardiovascular system, the respiratory system, the gastrointestinal system, the nervous system, the musculoskeletal system, and the endocrine system, among others. We will talk about the major diseases of these body areas that you will encounter as part of a typical osteopathic practice. These are things you probably have encountered to some degree as part of your classroom education and student clinical experiences. The course itself is designed to put these two things together in a meaningful way so you can pass the exam with confidence, based on the commonly accepted ways to manage these health conditions in a clinical setting. The focus of chapter one in the course is the different cardiovascular diseases you will encounter in a typical internal medicine practice. It includes conditions like angina, acute coronary syndromes, and arrhythmias as well as congestive heart failure, aortic dissection, valvular heart disease, and peripheral vascular disease. Inflammatory conditions affecting the heart, such as endocarditis and pericarditis, are less common but may still be seen and managed by you in an internal medicine practice. These are also covered in this chapter. Chapter two involves a discussion of the different endocrine disorders you might encounter in an internal medicine setting. These include disorders of weight loss or weight gain, diabetes mellitus, diseases of the parathyroid glands, thyroid disorders, endocrine diseases of pituitary origin, adrenal gland disorders, and the different male and female gonadal diseases related to the endocrine system. As you will see in this
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