Medical Toxicology is a field of medicine dedicated to the evaluation and treatment of poisoned and envenomated patients. It is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of poisoning and related health effects from medication, biological agents, and environmental or occupational toxins. It is a subspecialty of medicine focusing on toxicology and providing the diagnosis, management, and prevention of poisoning and other adverse effects due to medications, occupational and environmental toxicants, and biological agents. Important areas of medical toxicology include acute drug poisoning; adverse drug events; drug abuse, addiction, and withdrawal; chemicals and hazardous materials; terrorism preparedness; venomous bites and stings; and environmental and workplace exposures. This also includes adverse health effects of medications, occupational and environmental toxins, and biological agents.
Medical toxicology is a subspecialty focusing on the diagnosis, management, and prevention of poisoning and other adverse health effects due to drugs, occupational and environmentally toxic substances, and biological agents.
Medical toxicologists provide comprehensive care to patients who have come into contact with drugs or other substances that cause a threat to their health. They are involved in the assessment and treatment of a wide variety of problems, including acute or chronic poisoning, adverse drug reactions (ADRs), drug overdoses, envenomations, substance abuse, industrial accidents, and other chemical exposures. They specialize in the prevention, evaluation, treatment, and monitoring of injury and illness from exposure to drugs and chemicals, as well as biological and radiological agents.
Medical toxicology involves those disciplines that are concerned principally with the chemical identification, clinical effects, diagnosis, and treatment of chemical intoxication in human populations. This is officially recognized as a medical subspecialty by the American Board of Medical Specialties. It provides education for medical and pharmacy students as well as residents and fellows of all medical specialties. Its practitioners are physicians, whose primary specialization is generally in emergency medicine, occupational medicine, or pediatrics.
Toxicology is the scientific study of adverse effects that occur in living organisms due to chemicals. Medical toxicology is closely related to clinical toxicology, with the latter discipline encompassing non-physicians as well (generally pharmacists or scientists). It is a subspecialty of toxicology that focuses on the structure of chemical agents and how it affects their mechanism of action on living organisms.
