Doctors?

There once was a time where doctors took complete and total care of their patients.

They would handle your yearly physicals, cared for you when you had a cold, fixed boo-boos. On the rare occasion you became sick or injured enough to go to the hospital they would care for you there as well.

Your doctor would admit you, write your orders and do rounds until your discharge.

This almost never happens anymore...

Health care plans now control who your doctor is, how and when you are seen, your entitlement under your plan. Most importantly they control reimbursement. Now, if your doctor doesn't see 60 patients in a day at the office he basically starves to death. No time to go to the hospital and do rounds hey have to rely on other doctors.

The hospital is broken up by specialty these days. If you become sick or injured your PMD usually sends you to the ER to be seen by the ER doctor first. Depending on condition you are passed on to a hospitalist or intensivist. There you are consulted out to additional specialties like Cardiology, Neuro, GI/GI, Ortho, virtually and endless lineup of other doctors. That's the simple explanation. Should you end up at a teaching hospital there are additional legions of residents, interns, and mid-level providers.

Hope this helps...

Every pt should have a doc assigned as the admitting doctor, and that is the person who writes the orders. More and more hospitals are using hospitalists that have very limited if any office hours. More GPs/internists/fam.practice docs have all office hours and rarely go to the hospitals.

If there is good communication and electronic charting, then everyone can know everything!

Obviously, you need to ask at your facility exactly how everything is arranged.

Best wishes!

Deleted by author. Others posting the same time as I gave much clearer answers.

A hospitalist is a doctor that is usually a internal medicine doctor, that just prefers to work in hospital instead of a clinic. They have specialized training and experience in hospitalized patients. Otherwise, they are just like any other doctor. They just don't usually practice outside of a hospital like other doctors.