Career as a Hospitalist - Hospital Medicine Doctor
Hospital Medicine and the job of hospitalist are relatively new but exciting developments in the healthcare professions. Because this career is just a few decades old, there are many opportunities for people interested in a career in this medical specialty. Whether you are a high school graduate or you’ve been working for some time and are interested in switching careers, this is a good time to launch a career as a hospitalist.
First, in case you aren’t exactly sure what a hospitalist is, here is a definition. According to the Society for Hospital Medicine (SHM), hospitalists are physicians who focus their practice of medicine on hospitalized patients. It was R. M. Wachter and L. Goldman, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, who created the term “hospitalist” in 1996. They used it to describe physicians who spend the majority of their work hours caring for hospitalized patients. Some hospitalists are employees of a specific hospital, hospital network, or hospitalist management company, while many others are self-employed and contract with other physicians (typically primary care physicians) to provide care to their patients when they need to be hospitalized. Using a hospitalist can benefit both the contracting physicians and their patients. The physicians are able to remain at their local offices, knowing that the hospitalist is providing their patients with the care they need. The patients get the benefit of the hospitalist’s more extensive expertise in hospital-based medicine. Because hospitalists may be treating a patient with appendicitis one hour, and a heart patient the next, they have to learn about the basics of care and potential complications that could occur in the hospital for a very broad range of patients.
There are about 30,000 hospitalists working in US hospitals, and that number is expected to grow. Like any other medical doctor, you will need an extensive education, so be prepared to dedicate the next 11 years of your life (if you haven’t yet received a bachelor’s degree) to undergraduate college, medical school, and residency. You may also want to go through additional programs that are specific to hospitalists. You can also work as part of a hospitalist program by becoming a nurse practitioner or physician assistant, which means fewer years of education, and may be a good choice for those who aren’t interested in or do not have the resources to go to medical school. But keep in mind that as an NP or PA you may not work in the same capacity as a medical doctor. For example, in some hospitalist programs that hire NPs and PAs, these mid-level practitioners spent the majority of their time admitting patients to the program rather than providing patient care.
Since you’ll need to treat many kinds of patients, you must learn and retain information easily, and you must want to work with often very sick patients who are confined to hospital beds.
If you’re a graduating high school student you should look into premedical programs at colleges. For those who are switching careers, you may want to discuss your options with a career or academic counselor at a local college. If your bachelor’s degree is science-based, then you may be in good shape when it comes to applying for medical school.
Like all jobs in healthcare, hospitalist is a very responsible position, and one that can be very stressful. Mistakes happen, but in the medical community they can be very costly, both to the patient and the hospital. You may also work many hours and during nontraditional shifts, including weekends and evenings. Most hospitalists though, find their occupation very rewarding, because they can have a positive impact on their patients’ lives. It is also a very highly paid profession.
If the thought of the many years of education and the stress aren’t daunting to you, then becoming part of this exciting and new profession may be the right choice for you.
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