We Have Incredible Leadership
I have been repeatedly awestruck with the volume and quality of leaders within SHM and the larger hospital medicine community. Hospitalist leaders have energized all aspects of the healthcare industry, including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the American Board of Internal Medicine, and innumerable other professional societies and medical organizations.
We routinely occupy leadership seats among residency and fellowship programs, quality and safety structures, and C-suites around the country, within hospitals of all shapes, sizes, and structures. We are leading multi-million-dollar research teams at local, regional, state, and national levels.
SHM has been instrumental in providing training opportunities for hospitalists yearning for the skill set needed to take them and their organizations to the next level. There is no doubt hospitalists will continue to expand in leadership positions around the country—and beyond.
We Are a Bargain
One of the continually unsettling statistics that gets bantered around is how “expensive” we are to hospitals. That annual sum, when last surveyed, topped out at well over $100,000 per year per full-time equivalent hospitalist. That sure sounds like a lot of money—worth a few reliable vehicles, a few years of college education, or a sizable medical school loan repayment.
But I would counter that if a hospitalist is really being a hospitalist, by diligently operating within all those facets listed above, then administrators should consider us a heap of cheap dates. This would not include hospitalists with a truncated vision of their role in the hospital, which starts and ends in sharply demarcated 12-hour shifts. The latter approach, the limited perch, could certainly be perceived as a lavish investment. In the current cost-conscious healthcare environment, it’s better to be viewed as a cheap date.
My Mission
So that is a bit about why I am here: to discourse, praise, and evangelize about hospital medicine, past, present, and future; to summarize and speculate, why we are here, and where we are going next; to regularly shower each of you with the Kool-Aid; to buffer you from the daily difficulties of a very laborious yet very rewarding career. It will be an honor and a challenge to maintain this momentum, but I do believe I can execute.
Let me end with a few words about my predecessor, Jeffrey Glasheen, MD, SFHM, who successfully shepherded the previous four-plus years of The Hospitalist. Jeff is intelligent, witty, thoughtful, and an exceptional writer. He has graciously transitioned me into the publication, and I owe him my gratitude. Jeff, just don’t go too far away, in case I ever need a sprinkle of Kool-Aid myself.
Dr. Scheurer is physician editor for The Hospitalist, and is a hospitalist and chief quality officer at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, S.C. Send your comments and questions to [email protected].