"Poster Child" for Hospitalist Movement Changes Career Track: Confessions of an X-Hospitalist

The author of the blog In My Humble Opinion shares his rational behind a career change:

"I was once a hospitalist. In fact I was even featured in an article about hospitalists. Yep…that's me. Horrendous picture though… isn’t it? The patient I was taking care of was 97. She died about a year later in a nursing home. How do I know that? Because at the time I was transitioning to outpatient medicine. I became her primary care physician. So why did I make the change? And how much of a change was it for me? Recently I saw two patients discharged from hospitalist services. I think these cases illustrate the problems with this type of system."

The hospitalist system as a whole appears to be both viable and beneficial though. At least according to a recent NEJM study and the news about the planned IPO of one of the largest private hospitalist companies -- IPC The Hospitalist Co. ups deal size for IPO. According to MarketWatch: "The North Hollywood, Calif. provider of inpatient care raised $83 million by offering 5.2 million shares in the middle of its $15-$17 price range. In a sign of health, the company increased the size of the offering from 4.7 million shares."


Riding the Hospitalist Boom to an IPO. WSJ.

References:
Confessions of an X-Hospitalist. In My Humble Opinion.
What the Heck is a Hospitalist? North Shore Magazine.
Today’s New England Journal Hospitalist Study. Wachter's World.
Outcomes of Care by Hospitalists, General Internists, and Family Physicians. NEJM.
Image source: sxc.hu

Related:
Being a good hospitalist includes talking with the patient and the outpatient physician. DB’s Medical Rants, 01/2008.
A List of Hospitalist Blogs
Another Study Questions the Value of Hospitalists
Definition of "Hospitalist" Added to Merriam-Webster Dictionary
What I Learned from Making the Website of the Cleveland Clinic Hospitalists
SHM Annual Meeting and Cleveland Clinic Hospitalist Section
Audio: Hospitalist Medicine. One of the executives of IPC, Glen Applebaum, discusses hospitalist medicine as a career. Podcasting Project for the UT Internal Medicine Residency Program.

Updated: 03/31/2008