The good news is that employers are just as concerned about your job satisfaction and preventing burnout as you are (although it may not always seem that way). Many hospital medicine groups and hospitals are realizing that once you find the right hospitalists it takes commitment to retain them and nourish their career. It is expensive and disruptive to have a high turnover in a hospital medicine group. That is why SHM anticipates that many hospitals and hospital medicine groups will want to adopt the conditions that can lead to stability.
In addition to the work of the Career Satisfaction Task Force, the recently released data from the 2005-2006 Hospitalist Compensation and Productivity Survey will be another key element in creating the proper balance of work and pay for hospitalists. This year we had the largest response of hospitalist leaders (and an 85% increase from pediatric hospitalists alone), and SHM believes the current data are the most reliable in defining hospital medicine.
SHM members have access to the complete survey information—either online, on a CD, or in print. Make sure your hospital and your group uses this compensation and productivity gold standard as you make your staffing and compensation decisions.
Young Physicians Have Needs, Too
Obviously most of this is also applicable to physicians in training and in early career, but SHM wants to play an important role in the decision to become a hospitalist and wants to provide the young hospitalist with the skills to succeed. SHM is involved in efforts to redesign internal medicine residencies to make them more applicable to the way medicine is practiced in the 21st century. In the new schema there will be a core of internal medicine that everyone must be competent in. Then there will be an opportunity for individuals to elect to take the latter part of their residency with an emphasis on hospital medicine, a subspecialty, or ambulatory skills. SHM plans to use the recently published SHM Core Competencies in Hospital Medicine as a basis for our efforts in this redesign.
SHM is also developing materials to help medical students and residents understand just what a career in hospital medicine entails. We feel the more the young physicians understand the total picture of hospital medicine the more this will be a sought-after career choice. Hospitalists will have a role in direct patient care, leading change at their hospitals, improving quality, and still be able to have a full life outside of medicine.
The hospital medicine marketplace is still being defined. There is still significant room for growth and mobility. It will be a while before stability settles in. In fact there really is no status quo to use as a benchmark. In all this turbulence, SHM continues to create the tools and resources to help you find a sustainable career in hospital medicine—or to at least help you find your next job. TH
Dr. Wellikson has been CEO of SHM since 2000.