HWN Suggests

Hospital Medicine Now and in the Future: Ad Astra Per Aspera

The sky’s the limit (but no one said it would be easy)! The future is bright for our field: Our specialty is growing, we are making our part of the world a better place, we have the ability to shape our future, and we are finding solutions to complex problems together. We have a lot of work left to do: mitigating burnout, preparing ourselves to be leaders at the bedside and beyond, and advancing the science of our field are just a few of the challenges that remain. It’s no secret I am a huge Star Trek fan. Like many forms of fiction, it can highlight the human condition and offer inspirational solutions, like working together to solve complex problems. Ad Astra Per Aspera was the title of…

read full article

Articles of Interest

Bright Spots in the Future of Hospital Medicine

“It’s important for future doctors to recognize that hospital medicine can be a very supportive field, with lots of resources,” Dr. Namavar said. “I always tell them, if they are interested in something, just ask a hospitalist.”

Hospital Medicine: Past, Present, and Future

Over the past decade, American medicine has witnessed a revolution in health care delivery that arguably rivals any preceding it in our society. Adopting a model of care popular for decades in other countries such as Great Britain and Canada, the United States has largely shifted to a hospitalist-based mode of inpatient care delivery since the mid 1990s.

Making Hospital Medicine a Sustainable Specialty

Despite hospital medicine’s meteoric rise as the fastest-growing specialty in history and the fact that there are almost 50,000 hospitalists in the U.S. today, I’m a little worried about the future of the specialty. There are two conflicting messages I’m hearing increasingly in the work we do with hospitalist practices around the country. Hospital executives are telling us, “Our hospitalist program is too expensive and the cost is simply unsustainable.” But at the same time we are hearing too many hospitalists saying, “This job is way too hard and just not rewarding – I’m not sure how much longer I can do it.”

Preparing for the Future Demand of Hospital Medicine

The demand for hospitalists is projected to grow significantly, with 72,500 new positions expected by 2029. To address this growing need, strategic and proactive planning will be essential to maintaining consistent access to care.

Realizing the Potential of Hospitalist Medicine

The bar to break even is high, and the goal is not to break even. Hospital medicine has been the fastest growing field in medicine due to multiple factors; none of which are a proven net benefit over the traditional model when the posthospitalization period is considered.

The Field of Hospital Medicine and The Role of the Hospitalist

In 1977 the specialty of hospital medicine emerged in the United States of America (USA)and was first defined by the University of Chicago as "the field of internal medicine which concentrates on the practice of care for hospitalised patients." Traditionally in patient medical care was managed by the patient's primary care family physician supplemented by attending internists who were self employed fee for service physicians working from their own practices. This arrangement had a weakness. The bulk of the family physician's work was focused on the treatment of out patients in the community and the additional burden of caring for patients during hospital stays, which could be lengthy, posed an untenable strain.

The Future of Hospital Medicine

At one time, long, long ago, the scope of hospitalists’ work could be narrowly defined as the care of the acutely ill patient with such a medical illness as heart failure or pneumonia. Today, hospitalists routinely comanage surgical problems and serve as the prime admitter for medical cases (acute chest pain, sepsis, and the like) previously sent directly to specialists.

The future of hospital medicine: Evolution or revolution?

Sir William Osler may have been one of the earliest practitioners of hospital medicine. Yet, the recent development of the field can be traced to the choice by some graduates of internal medicine residency programs in the late 1980s and early 1990s to focus on caring for inpatients at community hospitals instead of pursuing office-based practice.

The many faces of hospital medicine

Some parts of being a hospitalist are universal, but other aspects of the job vary dramatically from country to country.

This fast-growing medical specialty surged over past decade

A growing number of in-demand physicians are seeing patients without appointments, checking up on them multiple times a day and providing comprehensive care. But there’s a catch: You shouldn’t aspire to see these doctors because they exclusively care for hospitalized patients. Less than 30 years since the designation was coined, hospitalists have transformed medicine. Between 2012 and 2022, the number of hospitalists surged nearly 80% to more than 50,000, according to figures provided by the Society of Hospital Medicine, an industry association representing hospitalists and other physicians practicing hospital medicine.