Hospital medicine in the United States is the discipline concerned with the medical care of acutely ill hospitalized patients. Physicians whose primary professional focus is hospital medicine are called hospitalists; this type of medical practice has extended beyond the US into Canada. The practical effect of the hospitalist is to act as transition coordinator and case manager, due to the tremendous growth in medical knowledge and resultant number of medical specialists.
The term hospitalist was first coined by Robert Wachter and Lee Goldman in a 1996 New England Journal of Medicine article. Hospitalist activities may include patient care, teaching, research, and leadership related to hospital care. Hospital medicine, like emergency medicine, is a specialty organized around a site of care (the hospital), rather than an organ (like cardiology), a disease (like oncology), or a patient’s age (like pediatrics).
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Famous quotes containing the words hospital and/or medicine:
“Time rushes toward us with its hospital tray of infinitely varied narcotics, even while it is preparing us for its inevitably fatal operation.”
—Tennessee Williams (1914–1983)
“Good medicine is bitter to the taste.”
—Chinese proverb.