Frustrated and tired 25 years after becoming the first hospitalist, Dr. Spencer retired in April 2001. Then he realized he wasn’t finished with medicine. Six months later he joined the hospitalist cadre led by his former intern, Dr. Cramer, at the Everett Clinic, a multispecialty group with 250 physicians and 65 midlevel providers.
Putting 30 years of hospitalist experience to work, Dr. Spencer recruits young hospitalists, teaches best practices, and continues to build relationships with general practitioners and specialists. From his unique vantage point, he sees hospital medicine as a maturing discipline gone mainstream.
“There’s still so much to do,” he says. He plans to explore a variety of hospitalist growth areas, such as efficient use of diagnostic testing, higher intensity medicine with patients of markedly higher acuity, step-down cardiac telemetry, more involvement with ICUs, and managing complex patients living with multiple co-morbidities.
But Dr. Ramirez says that with all he’s already accomplished, Dr. Spencer has earned a place of note: “I hope that hospitalists recognize he was three decades and six generations of physicians ahead of his time.” TH
Marlene Piturro is a medical writer based in New York.