A: My early mentor was our family doctor. He took a kindly interest in me and convinced me that I could be someone worthy of his respect and my own.
Q: What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in HM in your career?
A: The advent of EHR has done more to change the mechanics of inpatient practice than anything else.
Q: As a hospitalist, seeing most of your patients for the very first time, what aspect of patient care do you find most challenging?
A: It’s a real challenge to try to develop a working, human-to-human relationship with every sick stranger you encounter.
Q: What aspect of patient care is most rewarding?
A: When you acquire the skill of gaining the trust of a complete stranger on an initial encounter, it becomes a rewarding thing to do.
Q: Outside of patient care, tell me about your career interests.
A: I am a partner in, and officer of, the hospitalist company I helped start. Our overarching goal is to strengthen and stabilize the small, rural hospitals where we run programs. Without those hospitals, many patients will not be able to overcome the challenges of distance and winter travel to get the care they need. I am absolutely passionate about seeing this mission succeed in as many places as possible.
Q: What is your biggest professional challenge?
A: I spend lots of time talking to and working with the young physicians, PAs, and NPs I’m trying to recruit. This becomes more and more difficult as more hospitalist opportunities open and the pool of good clinicians does not expand. I’m often in the position of trying to interest a physician trained in an urban center in the advantages of working in an outlying location. Some get it; some don’t.
Q: What is your biggest professional reward?
A: Attracting a great clinician to a program where I’m sure s/he will be successful is a great thing for the individual and for that hospitalist team.
Q: What did it mean for you to be selected a Senior Fellow in Hospital Medicine?
A: This was especially meaningful to me as a PA because it was SHM really meaning it when they aspired to be a “big tent” society. I know of no other medical group that is this inclusive.