A new class of 141 Fellows of Hospital Medicine (FHM), SHM’s designation for recognizing professional leadership by hospitalists, will be introduced Tuesday morning at HM12 in San Diego. This is the fourth class of fellows, a program that began in 2009 with more than 500 inductees. Also honored this year are 54 new Senior Fellows of Hospital Medicine (SFHM) and three Masters of Hospital Medicine (MHM).
“SHM’s Fellows, Senior Fellows, and Masters in Hospital Medicine embody the core ideals of hospital medicine: high-value care delivery, teamwork to integrate health systems, and effective leadership to guide our systems,” says Shaun Frost, MD, SFHM, FACP, who will be inaugurated as SHM’s president this week. “As the vanguard of HM, they challenge our healthcare community to think critically about how care is provided in the hospital.”
For new Fellow Gregory Misky, MD, FHM, a hospitalist at the University of Colorado Denver, the designation represents national recognition and validation for his years of hospitalist work, including work in nonclinical realms such as teaching and hospital committee assignments.
“It also conveys a kind of credibility, both within my institution and my hospital group and among peers elsewhere—like a badge of honor. It feels like arriving as a well-rounded hospitalist and belonging to something bigger,” Dr. Misky says.
Mangla Gulati, MD, FHM, academic hospitalist at the University of Maryland at Baltimore, says that being named a fellow acknowledges the work she has done in areas such as quality, patient satisfaction, and teaching. “Hospitalists all over the country are doing things to make a difference,” she says. “This honor encourages us to continue.” Increasingly, says Dr. Gulati, all hospitalists will need to do more than just clinical work; they will need to show what they can do to improve quality of care, patient satisfaction, and efficiency.
The Fellow designation is for physicians who have devoted their careers to HM and whose personal and professional behavior embodies the mission and goals of SHM.