Medicine is the science and art of It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of Contemporary medicine applies health science, biomedical research, and medical technology to diagnose and treat injury and disease, typically through medication or surgery, but also through therapies as diverse as psychotherapy, external splints & traction, prostheses, biologics, ionizing radiation and The word medicine is derived from the Latin ars medicina, meaning the art of In most countries, it is a legal requirement for a medical doctor to be licensed or In general, this entails a medical degree from a university and accreditation by a medical board or an equivalent national organization, which may ask the applicant to pass This restricts the considerable legal authority of the medical profession to physicians that are trained and qualified by national It is also intended as an assurance to patients and as a safeguard against charlatans that practice inadequate medicine for personal While the laws generally require medical doctors to be trained in "evidence based", Western, or Hippocratic Medicine, they are not intended to discourage different paradigms of Doctors who are negligent or intentionally harmful in their care of patients can face charges of medical malpractice and be subject to civil, criminal, or professional The Greek physician Hippocrates, the "father of medicine", laid the foundation for a rational approach to Hippocrates introduced the Hippocratic Oath for physicians, which is still relevant and in use today, and was the first to categorize illnesses as acute, chronic, endemic and epidemic, and use terms such as, "exacerbation, relapse, resolution, crisis, paroxysm, peak, and convalescence"Working together as an interdisciplinary team, many highly trained health professionals besides medical practitioners are involved in the delivery of modern health Examples include: nurses, emergency medical technicians and paramedics, laboratory scientists, pharmacists, physiotherapists, respiratory therapists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, radiographers, dietitians, and The scope and sciences underpinning human medicine overlap many other Dentistry, while considered by some a separate discipline from medicine, is a medical A patient admitted to hospital is usually under the care of a specific team based on their main presenting problem, , the Cardiology team, who then may interact with other specialties, , surgical, radiology, to help diagnose or treat the main problem or any subsequent complications/Physicians have many specializations and subspecializations into certain branches of medicine, which are listed There are variations from country to country regarding which specialties certain subspecialties are The main branches of medicine are:1 Basic sciences of medicine; this is what every physician is educated in, and some return to in biomedical 2 Medical specialties3 Interdisciplinary fields, where different medical specialties are mixed to function in certain Medical education and training varies around the It typically involves entry level education at a university medical school, followed by a period of supervised practice or internship, and/or This can be followed by postgraduate vocational A variety of teaching methods have been employed in medical education, still itself a focus of active Many regulatory authorities require continuing medical education, since knowledge, techniques and medical technology continue to evolve at a rapid