What does an occupational and environmental medicine physician do?
As highly trained specialists, OEM physicians enhance the health of workers through preventive medicine, clinical care, disability management, research, and education. How do OEM physicians impact workforce health? In the early days of occupational medicine, physicians specializing in the health of employees were primarily reactive to the injuries and exposures that occurred in the workplace. Workers who became sick or were injured came to the worksite clinic; the physician’s focus was not on prevention or the overall health and wellness of the worker or workplace, but on treating the injured employee. In more recent years, however, the role of the OEM physician has changed significantly. As disease prevention and wellness have become a greater part of the health care equation, occupational and environmental medicine has expanded its scope and presence accordingly, contributing scientific research, new clinical guidelines for medical care, and public health programming aimed at the wor
