ER doc and Hospitalist?

[BlueAvenue]

I was wondering if one completed an IM/EM residency could they realistically spend half their time working as a hospitalist and the other half as an ER doc? Forgive this lowly pre-med for posting on the resident/attending forum, I just love getting answers from people actually apart of the medical community, not other pre-meds who know as much as I do. and please don't think me presumptuous for this post, I'm not planning my life out at 18 I just like to learn about the dynamics of hospitals and how these combined residencies could be put to practical use. Thank you in advance!

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[GoodmanBrown]

Others will know more, but my experience has been yes. I have been shadowing a doc who works academics, and he rotates between inpatient internal med, outpatient internal med, some hospice and palliative work, EM, and the county jail. I want to be him when I grow up.

Even in private practice, I think it'd be possible. Hospitalists work 7 on, 7 off frequently, and if you're looking for that ER fix, I'm sure an ER would pick you up for a day or two during your off week.

 

[EM2BE]

I have yet to see someone switching around like that. I know there was a forum somewhere that discussed this a while back (as to what would be humanly possible). I've seen the inpt/outpt mix but not the going from EM to the floors to the outpt. You will likely find you favor one or the other.

 

[Tiger26]

I have yet to see someone switching around like that. I know there was a forum somewhere that discussed this a while back (as to what would be humanly possible). I've seen the inpt/outpt mix but not the going from EM to the floors to the outpt. You will likely find you favor one or the other.

Yeah, even though most people do EM simply because they like it, I think a large secondary reason is so they don't have to do hospitalist-type work.

Being a hospitalist is like being a 3rd-4th year med student the rest of your life--taking care of other's patients, doing all the b!tch work for another attending, coming up with a plan that will invariably get changed by somebody . . .

 

[jazz]

but assuming you do an IM/EM residency.. you have interest in both

i think it is very possible since the benefit of hospitalist work is that they do shift work as well and have no responsibilities when they leave (kind of like er)...

 

[zinjanthropus]

but assuming you do an IM/EM residency.. you have interest in both

i think it is very possible since the benefit of hospitalist work is that they do shift work as well and have no responsibilities when they leave (kind of like er)...

sure, but you will essentially be spending money to do so - in other words, it will be hard not to just pick up more ED shifts if you're willing to work more as ED shifts will likely pay better in most places/situations

 

[jazz]

sure, but you will essentially be spending money to do so - in other words, it will be hard not to just pick up more ED shifts if you're willing to work more as ED shifts will likely pay better in most places/situations

true you will make more as an EP than a hospitalist...
but you will make more as a plastic surgeon than an EP

i'm assuming if you do a combined residency you have an interest in both IM and EM and thus may want to pick up a both kinds of shifts (after all money is not the end all be all... though it sure is handy)... i personally could never imagine being a hospitalist or anything general medicine but that's why i did an EM residency...

the OP only asked if it was feasible, and my point is that it is... unlike private practice where you would probably have to keep a fixed schedule and take call.. both EM and Hospitalist positions are similar in that you have shift schedules that vary from week to week and you have no call responsibilites when you work, thus making it easier to work a mixture of hospitalist/inpt shifts and ER/outpt shifts.

 

[docB]

So if you're an EP who also works as a hospitalist can you admit to yourself? It just seems wrong but I'm not sure if there is any specific rule against it.

I know a guy who is IM who works in the ED out at a rural hospital with few resources. That hospital has a reputation for transferring everything. All of the admitting docs out there are so afraid of having a patient get worse while in house and not being able to transfer when they're already an inpatient that they just ask that everything get transferred from the ED "just in case." This IM guy gets them to admit more stuff because he tells them that if it goes bad they can transfer to his hospitalist service at the big downtown hospital.

 

[BlueAvenue]

thanks to all who took the time to reply!

 

[KYTNOH]

During one of my interview days I talked with a EM2 resident who had previously completed an IM residency. He planned to split time as a hospitalist and EP when he graduates from residency.

 

[Hawkeye Kid]

One of our attendings is dual Peds/EM trained and splits clinical time between the ED and the pediatric hospitalist service. As far as I know, this is usually done in large chunks of time (>1 month), so it's not like she's working in the ED one day and on the floors the next.

 

[Arcan57]

The peds ED docs admit to themselves and round on the floor at the beginning of their shift. I think our hospital bylaws specifically prevent the adult side from doing the same.