The evolution of services to members has helped members establish credibility with their peers. Last year, SHM introduced the Fellow in Hospital Medicine designation to its members. This year, it expanded the fellowship program to include the new Senior Fellow in Hospital Medicine and the Master in Hospital Medicine programs.
“Many of our members are younger than the average physician, and in an emerging specialty,” Von Deak says. “That’s why so many of SHM’s benefits help members to establish themselves within healthcare. Our fellowship program has only been around for two years and we’ve already inducted nearly 1,000 members.”
The products and events—all offered to members at reduced rates—have all grown with SHM and its members. This year’s annual meeting attracted more than 2,500 of the most dedicated hospitalists from around the world.
Eugene Chu, MD, FHM, hospitalist and director of hospital medicine at the Denver Health Medical Center, remembers when he first joined SHM eight years ago. At the time, he says the member discount for the annual meeting was one of the deciding factors. “Financially, it made a lot of sense. The meeting discount and the member fee were close,” he says. “I’m glad it did, as SHM has offered a lot of additional benefits since then.”
Join the Movement
Over time, Dr. Chu found that the discounts for events and products were just the beginning. He now sees value in the energy that SHM brings to its members.
“Being a member brings you into the community of hospitalists,” he says. “It’s hard to quantify, but every time I come back from the spring meeting, I come back really charged up and enthusiastic about where hospital medicine is going.”
Dr. Chu isn’t alone. Many hospitalists become SHM members for financial reasons but end up renewing for the intangibles, Von Deak says.
“As members, they discover a lot more: the ability to network with peers in a growing specialty, a unified voice on critical issues, and, above all, the feeling that they are part of a real movement made up of dedicated professionals just like them,” Von Deak says.
The movement is equal parts human capital and mission. In recent years, SHM members and leadership have created new quality-improvement (QI) programs that have benefited hospitals and patients alike. The Project BOOST (Better Outcomes for Older Adults through Safer Transitions) initiative, for example, is helping more than 60 hospitals improve their discharge processes. Programs like Project BOOST, which was created in 2008, have raised the profiles of both SHM and its members within hospitals and all of healthcare.
SHM members also have ample opportunities for leadership development; like the movement, those opportunities go beyond HM. SHM’s online resource centers and mentored QI programs bring the very best of the specialty to aspiring hospitalist leaders in hospitals across the country.
For Aziz Ansari, DO, an assistant professor in hospital medicine and associate director for Loyola University Medical Center’s hospital medicine practice in Chicago, joining SHM was part of the natural progression in his career. He became an SHM member near the end of his first year as a hospitalist. Since then, Ansari’s appreciation of SHM membership has changed.
“As I progressed into leadership positions in hospital medicine, I found that the society brings credibility to the specialty,” Dr. Ansari explains. “To be established, the society needs members.”
Dr. Ansari can’t imagine not being an active member. “In fact, I haven’t met a nonmember who is as invested in their career and the specialty as SHM’s members are,” he says. TH