What is Occupational and Environmental Medicine (OEM)?
The work we do affects our physical and psychological well being. So it makes sense that you, as a physician, consider the important interactions between your patients’ health and their workplaces or their living environments, as we do in Occupational and Environmental Medicine (OEM). A worker’s health complaint may signal an occupational or environmental etiology, or it may translate into a disability that could limit someone from achieving their full functional potential, or both. Therein lay opportunities for specialization in occupational and environmental medicine. According to the American Medical Association, occupational medicine is defined as a “specialty field of medicine concerned with (1) The appraisal, maintenance, restoration and improvement of the health of the worker through the application of the principles of preventive medicine, emergency medical care, rehabilitation, and environmental medicine; (2) The promotion of a productive and fulfilling interaction of the work
