stupid question - hospitalist?

[tigress]

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I see in other forums that people mention a hospitalist. Well, I think I can basically figure out what that means, but anybody have any details?

thanks 😀

 

[Siggy]

A physician, usually an internist, who specializes in the care of hospitalized patients.

Dictionary.com is our friend.

 

[tigress]

Dictionary.com is our friend.

Yeah I looked up the definition, but it doesn't really tell me much...especially since in other forums it wasn't only about internists. Like training, what kind of work they do, what their hours are...just in general, info about what that means. Hospitals employ them? What is their patient base? Do they see other doctors' patients when those docs aren't around, or what?

 

[PublicEnemy]

hospitalist? and all this time i thought it was just a nice person.

 

[bridge01]

if you do a search in a journal within internal medicine you can probably find some interesting articles, etc. debating the role of the hospitalist, the benefits of having them as part of patient care, etc. for example, some docs talk about ways to ensure that the hand-over of patients between doctors from an inpatient to outpatient setting is streamlined and that things arent missed.

for a quick and dirty definition, this was off of google:
http://www.physiciansnews.com/business/298noel.html

here's an excerpt:
"About 2000 physicians nationwide call themselves hospitalists. Specializing in the management of hospitalized patients, the hospital becomes their office. A hospitalist takes over for a primary care physician when it comes time to admit a patient. For your average primary care physician, this means fewer, or no, visits to the hospital at the end of their office hours for rounds. Usually working on flexible, yet intense shifts of eight to twelve hours, the hospitalist turns his or her pager off when the shift is over."

this article goes on to discuss some of the pros and cons of the system, if you're interested.

 

[rachmoninov3]

I work on the "hospitalist" med-surg floor of St. Vincent's hospital in santa fe.
The "hospitalists" are a group of about 7 doctors (we're a small hospital) all internists who take care of people who don't have a primary care physician who are admitted to the hospital. From time to time they hospitalist also take care of tourists, and those whose doctors don't want to come in and see them in the hospistal, but the latter is a very low number.

Since St. Vincent's is the biggest hospital north of alb and south of denver, we see a lot of people from the four corners and the nm-co border. A lot of these small towns are very poor, have no medical services, and are ravanged by drugs, alcohol, and diabetes. The hospitalist program gives these patients a doctor to care for them while they are in the hospital. I liked this program so much, when I finish school (I have to get accepted first!) I want to be a hospitalist.

for more info: www.stvin.org or look up the 'monte sol medical group' headed by William Plauth III, Avelina Bardwell, and Danial Kovnat.

 

[bigdan]

I work in a 200 bed hospital with 5 hospitalists. I think the world of them because they take time to form relationships with all of us involved in patient care (not that the others don't, but there's definitely more of a "team" feel with the hospitalists). The wait for medical clearances for surgeries is also reduced with these guys. All of ours have been through a IM residency; I don't know if there is any fellowship or additional training for them.


dc

 

[tigress]

thanks for the info everybody 🙂 It will be interesting to see how this develops over the coming years

 

[aprince80]

I'm very interested in the idea of being a hospitalist also. In one case, there are a group of doctors, most certified in critical care, who have their own practice where they are contracted by other doctors to see their inpatients. This is pretty biased but my father recently changed to be a hospitalist and he loves it. Works 8 hour shifts and then takes call. Completely elminates outpatient work, it seems more fast-paced and exciting.
I think I would want to be a peds hospitalist, so you would do peds residency and then in most cases a critcal care fellowship.
Best of luck.