What Is a Hospitalist?

by Dr. Darlene Tad-y MD

“What is a hospitalist?”

I don’t remember exactly when during my medical education that I first asked that question out loud, but I do remember wondering about it. Now that I’m a teaching hospitalist, I find that I’m the one answering the question. Sometimes to patients, sometimes to others in healthcare, sometimes to friends and family.

But most of all, it’s important to explain it to medical students and residents. Check out this video — the first of five videos — and share it with the medical students and residents in your hospital. It’s a great way to convey the enthusiasm and momentum of the hospital medicine movement, straight from some of the leaders in the field.

Over the next few weeks, SHM will be releasing four other videos on other topics questions that are important to students and residents:

• – Leadership opportunities for hospitalists
• – Hospitalists and quality improvement
• – Some of the myths and facts about careers in hospital medicine
• – Balancing work and life as a hospitalist

Each video will appear on the SHM YouTube channel and will be promoted through the #FutureofHospitalMedicine hashtag on our new Tumblr site, Facebook and Twitter. And we’ll be providing sneak peeks to SHM members on HMX.

Those will also be great places to hear about many of the other great things that SHM is doing to encourage students and residents to become a part of the hospital medicine movement, including the brand new hospitalist scholarship program and the first-ever track for students, residents and early career hospitalists at Hospital Medicine 2015.

And the best news? We’re just getting started. I hope you’ll join us to bring thousands more students and residents to hospital medicine.

Darlene Tad-y, MD

Dr. Tad-y is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine where she is an academic hospitalist, Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency Training Program and Hospitalist Training Program, and the GME Director for Quality and Safety Innovation.

Dr. Tad-y has had a long-standing interest in medical education, specifically in curricular and program development around systems improvement and safety, hospital medicine, and learner assessment and program evaluation. Since joining the faculty at CU, she has helped to build the quality and safety curriculum for both the Hospitalist Training Program and the Internal Medicine Residency, as well as the Leaders Track of the Hospitalist Training Program. Her work has included curricular content for hospitalist residents around business of medicine, career development, quality and safety, in addition to the creation of a Systems-Based Morbidity and Mortality conference. Dr. Tad-y recently joined the faculty of CU’s Institute for Healthcare Quality, Safety, and Efficiency working to integrate students and residents into quality and safety initiatives.

Dr. Tad-y attended St. George’s University, followed by residency at Lutheran Medical Center, and completed a 2-year fellowship in Academic Hospital Medicine at Johns Hopkins focused on medical education. When she’s not teaching trainees or seeing patients, Darlene takes full advantage of the Colorado outdoors, including rock climbing, hiking, and skiing.