Palliative care
This was a topic that had been sprinkled throughout programs in previous years, but Dr. Finn and Dr. Smith said it was considered too important not to have its own track this year.
“I think hospitalists are often the doctors caring for patients at the end of their lives since many Americans die in the hospital,” Dr. Finn said. “So as a result, this is a skill set that as hospitalists we need to be very good at.”
Seasoning your career
This is a track geared toward one of this year’s themes: With “hospital medicine” now a concept that’s more than two decades old, how do hospitalists keep up the momentum in their careers, how do they take stock, how do they make the important decisions they face as they move ahead in their jobs?
“Hospital medicine is now over 20 years old – many hospitalists are now mid-career,” Dr. Finn said. “We picked an entire track on ‘seasoning your career’ to offer people ideas and skills to reflect on and rethink their career. Do you want to expand what you’re doing? Do you want to change it? How do you make this a lifelong career?”
Career development
There have always been workshops with a ‘career development’ focus, but this year six of them were chosen to be placed under the heading of an official “career development” workshop track.
“When you review the Day-at-a-Glance schedule, it really demarcates it,” Dr. Smith said. “This really helps attendees be able to quickly look through and find where they want to be for their next session.”
“Are there other skills you want to take on for the second half of your career?” Dr. Finn said. “Do you want to take on leadership? Do you want to learn how to better give your peers feedback? Do you want to promote women in your group? Do you want to prevent burnout or use emotional intelligence to improve your career? We cohorted these topics together.”
Aside from the new tracks, the course directors also drew attention to other new elements of the HM18 program.
For instance there are new topics in the Rapid Fire sessions. In the “Managing the patient on your service: Appendicitis, Bowel and biliary obstruction” session, a general surgeon will talk about how to manage these surgical issues when the patient is on a medical service. In “Interventional radiology: What every hospitalist needs to know,” an interventional radiologist will discuss when hospitalists may want to call in an interventional radiologist or refer to a hospital that has an interventional radiologist. And “Vulnerable populations and hospitalists” will continue with the theme of social determinants of health that was highlighted at last year’s meeting by keynote speaker Karen DeSalvo, MD, the national coordinator for health information technology.
Dr. Smith said that the program committee directors work with the Rapid Fire presenters so that the three or four questions discussed in the sessions are what attendees will want to learn most.
“We take an additional step: Once we recruit the speaker and have identified the topic, we have members of our committee work with the speakers,” he said.
“We don’t want them to come and give us an esoteric talk in an area that interests them. We want them to answer the clinical questions that hospitalists have,” Dr. Finn added.
Dr. Finn and Dr. Smith also highlighted sessions with a twist. For example, “Stupefy: EKGs for fun” is a session about EKGs that encourages hospitalists to “just go have fun reading them,” Dr. Finn said, while “Voldemort is on the plane: Airplane emergencies,” is scheduled for the final day of the conference, just before everyone flies back home.
As for catchy Disney-influenced titles, such as “The Mad Hatter: Updates in delirium” and “Waiting in line for ‘It’s a Small World’ and other things we do for no reason,” part of the credit can go to Dr. Finn’s niece. She said she “hired” her to come up with a list of Disney, Pixar, and Harry Potter movies and catchphrases. Then the committee worked them into the session titles.
Dr. Smith joked that part of his role was to veto some titles that were “a bit too cringe-worthy.”
“The theme of Orlando is making people happy,” Dr. Finn said. “One of the goals – the hopes – for me for at this meeting is that people bring their inner child and get curious again and explore new ideas and new topics and new career possibilities.”
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