Can any experienced one out there explain the pros and cons of being a primary care internist? This is apart from the money issue of specialists making more money. Is the hospitalist boom having the effect of causing the primary care doc. to admit less and have less inpatient work and is this a disadvantage? Also, does the primary care doctor truly have the opportunity to be a conductor rather than a referring agent for specialists? How is the job market for OFFICE based primary care internists?

Thanks! :confused:

not sure about the market - but my impression is that the increasing role of hospitalists is leading to more predictable schedules for both hospitalists and primary care (you would just have clinic M-F, business hours). the key will be to maintain good communication. you would probably do fine financially with a well run clinic (depends on what your expectations are). there's a lot that general internists can manage before referring to specialists. true that there would probably be few procedures in the outpt general IM setting.

The growing hospitalist field is allowing the outpatient internist to focus on his or her clinic. The physician can set his own hours (ex M-F, 9-5, no weekends or holidays), and not have to worry about seeing patients in an inpatient setting. It varies as to how much money one can make doing this. Some people are very business-minded. In additon, if you are trained in outpatient procedures (ex. flex sig, minor derm procedures, joint tapping, steroid injections, etc), you can make more as well. Internists are formally trained in all subspecialties of internal medicine (unlike FPs), so the internist is more likely to feel comfortable diagnosing and managing things like chronic renal failure, COPD, CHF, SLE, or Crohn's disease, as well as doing Primary Care/Preventative medicine. If an internist keeps up on his or her info in those fields, no referral is necessary, unless complications occur.