Dawn and dusk of internal medicine: a view of a qualified oncologist and hematologist.

1040 An internal medicine specialist! When I received my diploma from the Rector of the Medical Acade‐ my of Warsaw, Professor Jan Nielubowicz, I knew that achieving this professional status had been a dream of mine and many of my colleagues. For years the internal medicine specialist has been a symbol of the highest level of medical profession as he could treat all diseases which affect the in‐ ternal organs in a human body. During 30 years of my doctor’s practice, I had a chance to witness the enormous progress that took place in med‐ icine, but at the same time also the lowering of prestige and social faith in a doctor who is only an internal medicine specialist. In the meantime, the doctor training system has changed as well as the system for financing medical services. Nar‐ row specialties are now preferred in those areas. Both in Poland and abroad we are observing the aging of societies and the increased number of diseases affecting a single person. For several de‐ cades now we have been observing the epidemics of the cardiovascular system diseases and differ‐ ent types of cancer. Epidemiologists estimate that within the next 50 years different types of cancer will have become the major cause of mortality in Poland. Right now in Poland over 150 000 new cancer cases are diagnosed yearly, out of which over 90 000 patients die within the same year and the number of deaths is increasing from year to year. The main killers of the Polish people current‐ ly are: lung cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer but also gastric cancer, pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancer, head and neck cancer. This FORUM FOR INTERNAL MEDICINE