A career in rehabilitation medicine

What is rehabilitation medicine?

Rehabilitation medicine does not focus on one organ or body system—but involves individuals with cognitive or physical impairments, or both. Those impairments may be secondary to a variety of congenital or acquired conditions, including spinal cord injury, limb loss, brain injury, neurological and musculoskeletal conditions. Health professionals working in rehabilitation medicine deal with a patient’s physical, psychological, and social needs to ensure the best recovery and improvement in quality of life. They support patients and their families through life changing, and sometimes life limiting times. Rehabilitation medicine offers care in outpatient clinics, inpatient neurorehabilitation wards, intensive care, and the community. Doctors who work in rehabilitation medicine coordinate care, work with therapy teams, use technologies, and perform procedures such as botulinum toxin injections for spasticity.

The miracle recovery story everyone likes to hear about is not always the case. Rehabilitation medicine can be challenging emotionally and ethically—for example, caring for people with prolonged disorders of consciousness, such as vegetative and minimally conscious states.

Where did it come from?

Ludwig Guttman, a doctor who worked …