CoffeeClinicals.com wishes all my Hospitalist colleagues a Happy Hospitalist Day !! Celebrated on the first Thursday of every March, is it a happy one ? While we have a come a long way from the start of Hospitalist as a specialty, our specialty demand continues to grow – as evidenced by data about More than 50% hospitalists growth in the last 8 years) and regular increase in average Hospitalist salaries with an intact upwards trend, there is still more work to do and challenges to overcome . This is a good list of challenges / stress-points for Hospitalists on a survey taken in 2019 and still holds true. Burnout, decreasing Inpatient Medicare payments, ever-increasing patient loads, additional regulations regarding documentation, lack of autonomy while EMRs still slowing us down are my worst stress-points. Future threats of job-shrinkage by scope-creep & rapidly evolving telemedicine are still evolving.
But….not to be Debbie downer, we have a lot to be thankful about with this career – I love the intellectual satisfaction the career gives us, the very social environment that fosters good workplace friendships, the lifestyle with off-stretches and ability to pursue other hobbies, being in demand still and rapid technological advances that hospital medicine will be adopting such as A.I. , point of care ultrasounds, etc which will make the repetitive tasks & diagnoses faster. So enjoy your coffee while rounding today and maybe ponder over what you love the most about your job ! Society of Hospital Medicine is even running a creativity contest for this occasion. I am going to enjoy some yummy cookies that our floor nursing staff baked for us !
