Your opinion on HOSPITALISTS.

Specialties Med-Surg

Published

Do you love them or hate them? Do you think they are doing a better job than general practiotioners, when it comes to a hospitalized patient?

I happened to love our hospitalists and I feel that in most cases the care of the hospitalized patient is better and more consistent when it's managed by a hospitalist, than by a general practice doctor. (Of course, there are excepions.)

I know that the big argument against hospitalists is that they don't know the patient as well as their regular doctor, that has been seeing them for years, but I have observed, that oftentimes the general practice docs are kind of lost once their patient ends up in a hospital. Many times, when taking an order over the phone, did I have to suggest ever so gently and cautiously: "Doctor, would you like to order some Potassium, since you're ordering 1oo mg of Lasix IV for your patient, NS @ 120/hour and his K level is allready borderline...?" This never seems to happen with hospitalists. After all they do this hunderds of times a day...

Please share your knowlege, experiences and opinions...

I have only worked with 4 hospitalists, 2 were great, 2 were ego manics. They made life harder on the attendings, patients, not to mention the nurses. SO, my opinion is still forming. The concept is good, it just takes the right personality and committment to make it work.

personally, i love the hospitalists. we have many hospitalists and they are wonderful. very thorough, rarely agitated with nursing staff (though, like all doc's they have their moments). only downside i've experienced, they are always there!!! they write orders all day!! general practitioners come in before and/or after office hours and write orders then, and they rarely call with orders unless labs or something else is out of whack. but all in all, gotta love 'em!!

do you love them or hate them? do you think they are doing a better job than general practiotioners, when it comes to a hospitalized patient?

i happened to love our hospitalists and i feel that in most cases the care of the hospitalized patient is better and more consistent when it's managed by a hospitalist, than by a general practice doctor. (of course, there are excepions.)

i know that the big argument against hospitalists is that they don't know the patient as well as their regular doctor, that has been seeing them for years, but i have observed, that oftentimes the general practice docs are kind of lost once their patient ends up in a hospital. many times, when taking an order over the phone, did i have to suggest ever so gently and cautiously: "doctor, would you like to order some potassium, since you're ordering 1oo mg of lasix iv for your patient, ns @ 120/hour and his k level is allready borderline...?" this never seems to happen with hospitalists. after all they do this hunderds of times a day...

please share your knowlege, experiences and opinions...

Specializes in pediatrics.

Absolutely, love the hospitalists. I worked at a large pediatric teaching hospital who began hiring hospitalists in order to expand the number of beds. Had reached the max number of residents per patient. I can tell you form working with them, the level of care, the consistency, and the communication are so much improved. If I had child in the hospital, I would prefer to have the hospitalist manage their care while they are hospitalized.

We have five wonderful, caring, intelligent, dedicated hospitalists. Its nice to know that all I have to do is pick up the phone ans say I am very concerned due to my patient's respiratory status, etc and the hospitalist is there in 1 minute, sometimes even helping me wheel the patient in the bed to the ICU. I work in med-surg. One day one of the hospitalist's was so happy with my assessment of one of his patient's, that he bought me lunch. Wasn't expecting that ;). They are a great asset in our hospital.

Specializes in NICU.

We have pediatric hospitalists, and that's a great improvement on the local peds being called in the middle of the night. We are caring for much sicker infants, and although it's been a really steep learning curve for us, we are surviving, and so are the babies. They work 24 hour shifts, so we always have an inhouse ped. They are also all very good docs, and work well together.

In general, we all love having them around, and none of us want to go back to our pre-hospitalist days.

Specializes in Med-Surg, Geriatric, Behavioral Health.

Love the hospitalists!!!!

I believe that in some Hospitals, Hospitalists can be beneficial-However, when my Mother was ill, there was absolutely NO communication between the Hospitalists, andnone of them wanted to take any responsibility-A lot of "finger pointing" going on!

Plus, they don't know the patient as well as their own Internist does, and the Patient feels a lot more comfortable with teir own Doctor visting them in the Hospital-So, are Hospitalists really beneficial to the Patients-No; However, are they beneficial to the Patient's own Doctors since they don't want to take the time to anymore to visit them in the Hospital-Yes!

Bottom line-Hospitalists are solely beneficial to the Doctors and NOT to the Patients!

Specializes in Pediatrics, ER.

Disagree with your statement Tess. Hospitalists are beneficial because they are present 24/7. If a patient starts to go bad you have a hospitalist right there to lay eyes on them, vs calling the provider who may not on site. That can literally be the difference between life and death.

And the Hospitalists almost killed my Mother since none of them would take responsibility-One's own Doctor would come to care for you, if needed!

So, even if they're there 24/7, and don't take any responsiblity, don't communicate, and didn't even bother to look up her medical history or communicate with her Doctor, in this case, they were totally useless and unorganized!

Pointing fingers at who was responsible for the Patient, and none of them willing to take any responsibility- since the patient, they claimed was not their patient, even the Hospitalist admitted her!?:confused:

In some hospitals, this sytem make work very well; However, NOT in the hospital my Mother was in!

You must be a Hospitalist!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:confused:

Specializes in Med Surg, some Tele.

I think it all comes down to your specific hospitalist, Just like there are some docs we like and some we dont. I think when first transitioning the Docs feel threatened (that the hospitalists are taking over their patients) and the pt that is use to seeing their regular doc feels abandoned. Overall I like the hospitalists that we have but like all docs I am sure there will be one or two that will come along that I will not like working with.

Specializes in ER, progressive care.

I have mixed reviews on them. At my hospital, the hospitalists ARE the primary doctors. A lot of times they will consult other disciplines, but of course we have specialized docs that admit patients, too.

Some of the hospitalists are very thorough, which I really like. The others, however, I don't like because they either won't do a whole lot (you have to really push them to do things you think is best for the patient and even then they won't always give you orders -_-) or they will simply tell you "just let the morning team know and pass it on to dayshift." Very frustrating.

We don't have intensivists, either. All of our hospitalists are general internal med docs and will admit patients to all of our units, including ICU.

Specializes in neuro/ortho med surge 4.

I love our hospitalists. They seem so overworked at times though. Poor things. They are very kind and caring and it is great to have the docs right at the hospital where they can lay eyes on the patients.

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