With regard to providing learning opportunities for a diverse audience:
- The pre-courses on Thursday allowed attendees to gain in-depth knowledge on practice management, perioperative medicine, and critical care medicine.
- There were 35 separate presentations in 7 tracks over the 2 days of the main meeting. The clinical, adult clinical, and pediatric clinical tracks covered a wide array of topics, from maternal fetal medicine to acquired pediatric heart disease to addiction medicine. Tracks on quality and patient safety were very well attended, and the academic track included an important update on the hospitalist core curriculum being developed by SHM.
- There were 10 special interest forums allowing attendees interested in the following subjects to exchange ideas: community based hospitalists, research, education, medical directors, women hospitalists, pediatric hospitalists, family practice hospitalists, geriatric hospitalists, early career hospitalists, and nurse practitioners and physician assistants.
- The plenary sessions on updates in hospital medicine and pediatric hospital medicine provided excellent reviews of recent research relevant to hospitalists. Bob Wachter’s annual presentation, this year entitled “Hospital Medicine: Still Crazy After All These Years” laid out some important challenges for the hospital medicine movement as it moves into adolescence.
Finally, with regard to demonstrating SHM’s competence and its ability to meet the needs of its members:
- At the President’s Luncheon, the depth of SHM leadership was evident. Jeanne Huddleston, MD, reported on the significant accomplishments of the past year and handed the torch to SHM’s new President, Steve Pantilat, MD. Steve described his two goals for the upcoming year, the development ofan SHM Research Foundation and an emphasis on the role of hospitalists in palliative care. And Larry Wellikson, MD, SHM’s CEO, displayed energy and charisma throughout the meeting.
- The power of SHM volunteerism was unmistakable throughout the meeting. Preetha Basaviah, MD, the overall course director, harnessed group of SHM members participating in a planning committee to decide on the topics and choose the speakers for the meeting. A broad cross-section of SHM members participated in over 15 committee meetings in Chicago, as they donated their time to improving the field of hospital medicine.
- The conference was a vehicle to display the public relations capabilities of SHM. Melanie Bloom, wife of NBC newscaster David Bloom who died in Iraq of DVT complications, described the awareness campaign that SHM led. The attendees then viewed a short video of the television appearances by hospitalists in the last year, as hospital medicine has received increasing attention in the media. Larry Wellikson announced that every SHM member will receive a DVD with these video news segments.
- The strength of SHM staff and organization was on display in Chicago. Larry Wellikson reported that the staff has more than doubled and he cited a litany of accomplishments, including a new improved website, electronic registration for meetings, a broad range of educational offerings, and a healthy financial outlook. Furthermore, SHM has continued to experience significant membership growth, as the number of members now exceeds 4700, an increase of more than 40% in the past 12 months.
- Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Wellikson described a wide variety of initiatives that are being pursued to meet the needs of SHM members. These initiatives include a long range plan for the formal certification of hospitalists, strategic partnerships with key organizations, public policy initiatives, and the continued strengthening of historical efforts regarding education, leadership, and surveys.
In summary, the SHM conference was greater than the sum of the parts. It was successfully executed on multiple fronts. However I have not yet discussed perhaps the most important achievement of this meeting. It served as an opportunity for hospitalists to meet new friends and to reconnect with old colleagues. The Annual Meeting in Chicago created a positive energy that will carry SHM members until we have the opportunity to meet again next year in Washington, DC.