Felicia Steele

Editor’s note: Each month, the Society of Hospitalist Medicine puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help improve the care of hospitalized patients.

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Barbara Egan, MD, FACP, SFHM, chief of the hospital medicine service in the department of medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Barbara has been a member of SHM since 2005, is dual certified in hospital medicine and palliative care, and is the chair of SHM’s Palliative Care Work Group.

When did you first hear about SHM, and why did you decide to become a member?

I first learned about SHM when I was an internal medicine resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, in the early 2000s. BWH had an extremely strong hospitalist group; the staff I worked with served as powerful role models for me and inspired my interest in becoming a hospitalist. One of my attendings suggested that I join SHM, which I did right after I graduated from residency. I attended my first SHM Annual Conference in 2005. By then, I was working as a hospitalist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. SHM and the field of hospital medicine have exploded since my career first began, and I am happy to have grown alongside them. Similarly, our hospital medicine group here at MSKCC has dramatically grown, from 1 hospitalist (me) to more than 30!

How did you get involved with SHM’s Palliative Care Work Group, and what has the work group accomplished since you joined?

I was honored to be invited to join SHM’s Palliative Care Work Group in 2017 by Wendy Anderson, MD, a colleague and now a friend from University of California, San Francisco. Wendy is a visionary leader who practices and researches at the intersection of palliative care and hospital medicine. She and I met during 2015, when we were both invited to join a collaboration between SHM and the Hastings Center in Garrison, N.Y., which was aimed at improving hospitalists’ ability to provide outstanding care to hospitalized patients with life-limiting illnesses. That collaboration resulted in the Improving Communication about Serious Illness–Implementation Guide, a compilation of resources and best practices.

Wendy was chairing the SHM Palliative Care Work Group and invited me to join, which I did with great enthusiasm. This group consists of several passionate and brilliant hospitalists whose practices, in a variety of ways, involve both hospital medicine and palliative medicine. I was so honored when Wendy passed the baton to me last spring and invited me to chair the Work Group. I am lucky to have the opportunity to collaborate with this group of dynamic individuals, and we are well supported by an outstanding SHM staff member, Nick Marzano.
 

Are there any new projects that the work group is currently focusing on?

The primary focus of SHM’s Palliative Care Work Group is educational. That is, we aim to assess and help meet the educational needs of hospitalists, thereby helping to empower them to be outstanding providers of primary palliative care to seriously ill, hospitalized patients. To that end, we were very proud to orchestrate a palliative care mini-track for the first time at HM18. To our group’s delight, the attendance and reviews of that track were great. Thus, we were invited to further expand the palliative care offerings at HM19. We are busy planning for HM19: a full-day pre-course in palliative medicine; several podium presentations which will touch on ethical challenges, symptom management, prognostication, and other important topics; and a workshop in communication skills.
 

What led to your dual certification and how do your two specialties overlap?

I am board certified in internal medicine with Focused Practice in Hospital Medicine by virtue of my clinical training and my primary clinical practice as a hospitalist. As a hospitalist in a cancer center, I spend most of my time caring for patients with late- and end-stage malignancy. As such, early in my career, I had to develop a broad base of palliative medical skills, such as pain and symptom management and communication skills. I find this work extremely rewarding, albeit emotionally taxing. I have learned to redefine what clinical “success” looks like – my patients often have unfixable medical problems, but I can always strive to improve their lives in some way, even if that means helping to provide them with a painless, dignified death as opposed to curing them.

When the American Board of Medical Specialties established a board certification in Hospice and Palliative Medicine, there briefly existed a pathway to be “grandfathered” in, i.e., to qualify for board certification through an examination and clinical experience, as opposed to a fellowship. I jumped at the chance to formalize my palliative care skills and experience, and I attained board certification in 2012. This allowed me to further diversify my clinical practice here at MSKCC.

Hospital medicine is still my first love, and I spend most of my time practicing as a hospitalist on our solid tumor services. But now I also spend several weeks each year attending as a consultant on our inpatient supportive care service. In that role, I am able to collaborate with a fantastic multidisciplinary team consisting of MDs, NPs, a chaplain, a pharmacist, a social worker, and integrative medicine practitioners. I also love the opportunity to teach and mentor our palliative medicine fellows.

To me, the opportunity to marry hospital medicine and palliative medicine in my career was a natural fit. Hospitalists, particularly those caring exclusively for cancer patients like I do, need to provide excellent palliative care to our patients every day. The opportunity to further my training and to obtain board certification was a golden one, and I love being able to wear both hats here at MSKCC.
 

Ms. Steele is a marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: Each month, the Society of Hospitalist Medicine puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help improve the care of hospitalized patients.

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Barbara Egan, MD, FACP, SFHM, chief of the hospital medicine service in the department of medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Barbara has been a member of SHM since 2005, is dual certified in hospital medicine and palliative care, and is the chair of SHM’s Palliative Care Work Group.

When did you first hear about SHM, and why did you decide to become a member?

I first learned about SHM when I was an internal medicine resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, in the early 2000s. BWH had an extremely strong hospitalist group; the staff I worked with served as powerful role models for me and inspired my interest in becoming a hospitalist. One of my attendings suggested that I join SHM, which I did right after I graduated from residency. I attended my first SHM Annual Conference in 2005. By then, I was working as a hospitalist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. SHM and the field of hospital medicine have exploded since my career first began, and I am happy to have grown alongside them. Similarly, our hospital medicine group here at MSKCC has dramatically grown, from 1 hospitalist (me) to more than 30!

How did you get involved with SHM’s Palliative Care Work Group, and what has the work group accomplished since you joined?

I was honored to be invited to join SHM’s Palliative Care Work Group in 2017 by Wendy Anderson, MD, a colleague and now a friend from University of California, San Francisco. Wendy is a visionary leader who practices and researches at the intersection of palliative care and hospital medicine. She and I met during 2015, when we were both invited to join a collaboration between SHM and the Hastings Center in Garrison, N.Y., which was aimed at improving hospitalists’ ability to provide outstanding care to hospitalized patients with life-limiting illnesses. That collaboration resulted in the Improving Communication about Serious Illness–Implementation Guide, a compilation of resources and best practices.

Wendy was chairing the SHM Palliative Care Work Group and invited me to join, which I did with great enthusiasm. This group consists of several passionate and brilliant hospitalists whose practices, in a variety of ways, involve both hospital medicine and palliative medicine. I was so honored when Wendy passed the baton to me last spring and invited me to chair the Work Group. I am lucky to have the opportunity to collaborate with this group of dynamic individuals, and we are well supported by an outstanding SHM staff member, Nick Marzano.
 

Are there any new projects that the work group is currently focusing on?

The primary focus of SHM’s Palliative Care Work Group is educational. That is, we aim to assess and help meet the educational needs of hospitalists, thereby helping to empower them to be outstanding providers of primary palliative care to seriously ill, hospitalized patients. To that end, we were very proud to orchestrate a palliative care mini-track for the first time at HM18. To our group’s delight, the attendance and reviews of that track were great. Thus, we were invited to further expand the palliative care offerings at HM19. We are busy planning for HM19: a full-day pre-course in palliative medicine; several podium presentations which will touch on ethical challenges, symptom management, prognostication, and other important topics; and a workshop in communication skills.
 

What led to your dual certification and how do your two specialties overlap?

I am board certified in internal medicine with Focused Practice in Hospital Medicine by virtue of my clinical training and my primary clinical practice as a hospitalist. As a hospitalist in a cancer center, I spend most of my time caring for patients with late- and end-stage malignancy. As such, early in my career, I had to develop a broad base of palliative medical skills, such as pain and symptom management and communication skills. I find this work extremely rewarding, albeit emotionally taxing. I have learned to redefine what clinical “success” looks like – my patients often have unfixable medical problems, but I can always strive to improve their lives in some way, even if that means helping to provide them with a painless, dignified death as opposed to curing them.

When the American Board of Medical Specialties established a board certification in Hospice and Palliative Medicine, there briefly existed a pathway to be “grandfathered” in, i.e., to qualify for board certification through an examination and clinical experience, as opposed to a fellowship. I jumped at the chance to formalize my palliative care skills and experience, and I attained board certification in 2012. This allowed me to further diversify my clinical practice here at MSKCC.

Hospital medicine is still my first love, and I spend most of my time practicing as a hospitalist on our solid tumor services. But now I also spend several weeks each year attending as a consultant on our inpatient supportive care service. In that role, I am able to collaborate with a fantastic multidisciplinary team consisting of MDs, NPs, a chaplain, a pharmacist, a social worker, and integrative medicine practitioners. I also love the opportunity to teach and mentor our palliative medicine fellows.

To me, the opportunity to marry hospital medicine and palliative medicine in my career was a natural fit. Hospitalists, particularly those caring exclusively for cancer patients like I do, need to provide excellent palliative care to our patients every day. The opportunity to further my training and to obtain board certification was a golden one, and I love being able to wear both hats here at MSKCC.
 

Ms. Steele is a marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: Each month, the Society of Hospitalist Medicine puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help improve the care of hospitalized patients.

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Barbara Egan, MD, FACP, SFHM, chief of the hospital medicine service in the department of medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Barbara has been a member of SHM since 2005, is dual certified in hospital medicine and palliative care, and is the chair of SHM’s Palliative Care Work Group.

When did you first hear about SHM, and why did you decide to become a member?

I first learned about SHM when I was an internal medicine resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, in the early 2000s. BWH had an extremely strong hospitalist group; the staff I worked with served as powerful role models for me and inspired my interest in becoming a hospitalist. One of my attendings suggested that I join SHM, which I did right after I graduated from residency. I attended my first SHM Annual Conference in 2005. By then, I was working as a hospitalist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. SHM and the field of hospital medicine have exploded since my career first began, and I am happy to have grown alongside them. Similarly, our hospital medicine group here at MSKCC has dramatically grown, from 1 hospitalist (me) to more than 30!

How did you get involved with SHM’s Palliative Care Work Group, and what has the work group accomplished since you joined?

I was honored to be invited to join SHM’s Palliative Care Work Group in 2017 by Wendy Anderson, MD, a colleague and now a friend from University of California, San Francisco. Wendy is a visionary leader who practices and researches at the intersection of palliative care and hospital medicine. She and I met during 2015, when we were both invited to join a collaboration between SHM and the Hastings Center in Garrison, N.Y., which was aimed at improving hospitalists’ ability to provide outstanding care to hospitalized patients with life-limiting illnesses. That collaboration resulted in the Improving Communication about Serious Illness–Implementation Guide, a compilation of resources and best practices.

Wendy was chairing the SHM Palliative Care Work Group and invited me to join, which I did with great enthusiasm. This group consists of several passionate and brilliant hospitalists whose practices, in a variety of ways, involve both hospital medicine and palliative medicine. I was so honored when Wendy passed the baton to me last spring and invited me to chair the Work Group. I am lucky to have the opportunity to collaborate with this group of dynamic individuals, and we are well supported by an outstanding SHM staff member, Nick Marzano.
 

Are there any new projects that the work group is currently focusing on?

The primary focus of SHM’s Palliative Care Work Group is educational. That is, we aim to assess and help meet the educational needs of hospitalists, thereby helping to empower them to be outstanding providers of primary palliative care to seriously ill, hospitalized patients. To that end, we were very proud to orchestrate a palliative care mini-track for the first time at HM18. To our group’s delight, the attendance and reviews of that track were great. Thus, we were invited to further expand the palliative care offerings at HM19. We are busy planning for HM19: a full-day pre-course in palliative medicine; several podium presentations which will touch on ethical challenges, symptom management, prognostication, and other important topics; and a workshop in communication skills.
 

What led to your dual certification and how do your two specialties overlap?

I am board certified in internal medicine with Focused Practice in Hospital Medicine by virtue of my clinical training and my primary clinical practice as a hospitalist. As a hospitalist in a cancer center, I spend most of my time caring for patients with late- and end-stage malignancy. As such, early in my career, I had to develop a broad base of palliative medical skills, such as pain and symptom management and communication skills. I find this work extremely rewarding, albeit emotionally taxing. I have learned to redefine what clinical “success” looks like – my patients often have unfixable medical problems, but I can always strive to improve their lives in some way, even if that means helping to provide them with a painless, dignified death as opposed to curing them.

When the American Board of Medical Specialties established a board certification in Hospice and Palliative Medicine, there briefly existed a pathway to be “grandfathered” in, i.e., to qualify for board certification through an examination and clinical experience, as opposed to a fellowship. I jumped at the chance to formalize my palliative care skills and experience, and I attained board certification in 2012. This allowed me to further diversify my clinical practice here at MSKCC.

Hospital medicine is still my first love, and I spend most of my time practicing as a hospitalist on our solid tumor services. But now I also spend several weeks each year attending as a consultant on our inpatient supportive care service. In that role, I am able to collaborate with a fantastic multidisciplinary team consisting of MDs, NPs, a chaplain, a pharmacist, a social worker, and integrative medicine practitioners. I also love the opportunity to teach and mentor our palliative medicine fellows.

To me, the opportunity to marry hospital medicine and palliative medicine in my career was a natural fit. Hospitalists, particularly those caring exclusively for cancer patients like I do, need to provide excellent palliative care to our patients every day. The opportunity to further my training and to obtain board certification was a golden one, and I love being able to wear both hats here at MSKCC.
 

Ms. Steele is a marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: SHM occasionally puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help improve the care of hospitalized patients.

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Atashi Mandal, MD , a Med-Peds hospitalist in Huntington Beach, Calif. Dr. Mandal has been a member of SHM since for more than a decade, has served on the Public Policy Committee, and is currently serving on the Patient Experience Committee.

How did you initially hear about SHM, and why did you become a member?

I was a newly minted hospitalist and eagerly searching for a way to use my CME allowance, when I discovered SHM’s annual conference, which happened to be nearby in San Diego that year. I also was intrigued by, and excited to learn more about, an organization that dedicated itself only to hospital medicine. After attending the conference, I was hooked!
 

As a member of more than a decade, what aspects of your membership have you found to be most valuable?

I’ve always been very impressed by the quality and variety of the educational offerings. As a Med-Peds hospitalist, I can happily attest to greater inclusion of pediatric-specific content and a more robust presence of pediatric hospitalists over the years. Moreover, I am very appreciative of SHM’s progressive attitude as demonstrated by incorporating topics such as gender disparities, LGBTQ health, and the opioid crisis into our curriculum. I also have greatly enjoyed the networking opportunities with fellow hospitalists, some of whom I am happy to say have also become good friends over the years. More recently over the past few years, I’ve participated on committees, which has been an illuminating and gratifying way to help shape SHM’s current and future directives.
 

Describe your role on the Public Policy Committee. What did the committee accomplish during your term?

I was very honored to serve as a member of this committee for three terms. The staff is truly superhuman and amazing, considering how well they stay abreast of the swiftly changing administrative and legislative currents in health care. Just during my tenure as an SHM member, we’ve witnessed paramount shifts in our practice and culture, from the passage of MACRA, [the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act] to the opioid epidemic. The Public Policy Committee identifies issues that affect our practice as hospitalists and advocates on our behalf through various means, from submitting comments and letters as well as personally meeting with our regulatory agencies such as CMS [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services], and our federal legislators. Some major victories were the acquisition of our specialty billing code and approval of an advanced care billing code. Additionally, the committee has been tirelessly advocating for reform with observation status. We have submitted comments to legislative committees regarding the opioid crisis and continue to work with MACRA as it affects our membership. While I served, I took a special interest in mental health and pediatric issues, including CHIP [Children’s Health Insurance Program] reauthorization and the 21st Century Cures Act.
 

What is Hill Day, and what can Hospital Medicine 2019 attendees expect to gain from participating?

Hill Day is a truly educational, exciting – and most important – fun opportunity to hone our advocacy skills and gain some real-world experience interacting with legislators and their staffs. On the last day of the annual conference attendees can travel to D.C., where we will spend about a half-day meeting with our respective state’s legislators or their staff. We typically discuss two or three preselected bills that can directly impact our practice as hospitalists. The legislators and their staffers generally are not aware of how certain legislative items can greatly benefit or adversely affect our patients, and they therefore rely on front-line clinicians like us to provide this narrative, much to their gratitude. I learn a lot and have even more fun each time I go to Capitol Hill, so I strongly encourage everyone to participate in this unique opportunity.
 

Do you have any advice for early-career hospitalists looking to gain experience and get involved with SHM?

I would encourage you to find your voice and participate! Whether by joining a committee or a Special Interest Group or just chatting on one of the many stimulating forums, we each have something to bring to the table, irrespective of our tenure as hospitalists. The new perspectives mingling with those that are well established is what keeps our organization relevant, so I look forward to new ideas and fresh faces!

Ms. Steele is a marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: SHM occasionally puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help improve the care of hospitalized patients.

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Atashi Mandal, MD , a Med-Peds hospitalist in Huntington Beach, Calif. Dr. Mandal has been a member of SHM since for more than a decade, has served on the Public Policy Committee, and is currently serving on the Patient Experience Committee.

How did you initially hear about SHM, and why did you become a member?

I was a newly minted hospitalist and eagerly searching for a way to use my CME allowance, when I discovered SHM’s annual conference, which happened to be nearby in San Diego that year. I also was intrigued by, and excited to learn more about, an organization that dedicated itself only to hospital medicine. After attending the conference, I was hooked!
 

As a member of more than a decade, what aspects of your membership have you found to be most valuable?

I’ve always been very impressed by the quality and variety of the educational offerings. As a Med-Peds hospitalist, I can happily attest to greater inclusion of pediatric-specific content and a more robust presence of pediatric hospitalists over the years. Moreover, I am very appreciative of SHM’s progressive attitude as demonstrated by incorporating topics such as gender disparities, LGBTQ health, and the opioid crisis into our curriculum. I also have greatly enjoyed the networking opportunities with fellow hospitalists, some of whom I am happy to say have also become good friends over the years. More recently over the past few years, I’ve participated on committees, which has been an illuminating and gratifying way to help shape SHM’s current and future directives.
 

Describe your role on the Public Policy Committee. What did the committee accomplish during your term?

I was very honored to serve as a member of this committee for three terms. The staff is truly superhuman and amazing, considering how well they stay abreast of the swiftly changing administrative and legislative currents in health care. Just during my tenure as an SHM member, we’ve witnessed paramount shifts in our practice and culture, from the passage of MACRA, [the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act] to the opioid epidemic. The Public Policy Committee identifies issues that affect our practice as hospitalists and advocates on our behalf through various means, from submitting comments and letters as well as personally meeting with our regulatory agencies such as CMS [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services], and our federal legislators. Some major victories were the acquisition of our specialty billing code and approval of an advanced care billing code. Additionally, the committee has been tirelessly advocating for reform with observation status. We have submitted comments to legislative committees regarding the opioid crisis and continue to work with MACRA as it affects our membership. While I served, I took a special interest in mental health and pediatric issues, including CHIP [Children’s Health Insurance Program] reauthorization and the 21st Century Cures Act.
 

What is Hill Day, and what can Hospital Medicine 2019 attendees expect to gain from participating?

Hill Day is a truly educational, exciting – and most important – fun opportunity to hone our advocacy skills and gain some real-world experience interacting with legislators and their staffs. On the last day of the annual conference attendees can travel to D.C., where we will spend about a half-day meeting with our respective state’s legislators or their staff. We typically discuss two or three preselected bills that can directly impact our practice as hospitalists. The legislators and their staffers generally are not aware of how certain legislative items can greatly benefit or adversely affect our patients, and they therefore rely on front-line clinicians like us to provide this narrative, much to their gratitude. I learn a lot and have even more fun each time I go to Capitol Hill, so I strongly encourage everyone to participate in this unique opportunity.
 

Do you have any advice for early-career hospitalists looking to gain experience and get involved with SHM?

I would encourage you to find your voice and participate! Whether by joining a committee or a Special Interest Group or just chatting on one of the many stimulating forums, we each have something to bring to the table, irrespective of our tenure as hospitalists. The new perspectives mingling with those that are well established is what keeps our organization relevant, so I look forward to new ideas and fresh faces!

Ms. Steele is a marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: SHM occasionally puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help improve the care of hospitalized patients.

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Atashi Mandal, MD , a Med-Peds hospitalist in Huntington Beach, Calif. Dr. Mandal has been a member of SHM since for more than a decade, has served on the Public Policy Committee, and is currently serving on the Patient Experience Committee.

How did you initially hear about SHM, and why did you become a member?

I was a newly minted hospitalist and eagerly searching for a way to use my CME allowance, when I discovered SHM’s annual conference, which happened to be nearby in San Diego that year. I also was intrigued by, and excited to learn more about, an organization that dedicated itself only to hospital medicine. After attending the conference, I was hooked!
 

As a member of more than a decade, what aspects of your membership have you found to be most valuable?

I’ve always been very impressed by the quality and variety of the educational offerings. As a Med-Peds hospitalist, I can happily attest to greater inclusion of pediatric-specific content and a more robust presence of pediatric hospitalists over the years. Moreover, I am very appreciative of SHM’s progressive attitude as demonstrated by incorporating topics such as gender disparities, LGBTQ health, and the opioid crisis into our curriculum. I also have greatly enjoyed the networking opportunities with fellow hospitalists, some of whom I am happy to say have also become good friends over the years. More recently over the past few years, I’ve participated on committees, which has been an illuminating and gratifying way to help shape SHM’s current and future directives.
 

Describe your role on the Public Policy Committee. What did the committee accomplish during your term?

I was very honored to serve as a member of this committee for three terms. The staff is truly superhuman and amazing, considering how well they stay abreast of the swiftly changing administrative and legislative currents in health care. Just during my tenure as an SHM member, we’ve witnessed paramount shifts in our practice and culture, from the passage of MACRA, [the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act] to the opioid epidemic. The Public Policy Committee identifies issues that affect our practice as hospitalists and advocates on our behalf through various means, from submitting comments and letters as well as personally meeting with our regulatory agencies such as CMS [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services], and our federal legislators. Some major victories were the acquisition of our specialty billing code and approval of an advanced care billing code. Additionally, the committee has been tirelessly advocating for reform with observation status. We have submitted comments to legislative committees regarding the opioid crisis and continue to work with MACRA as it affects our membership. While I served, I took a special interest in mental health and pediatric issues, including CHIP [Children’s Health Insurance Program] reauthorization and the 21st Century Cures Act.
 

What is Hill Day, and what can Hospital Medicine 2019 attendees expect to gain from participating?

Hill Day is a truly educational, exciting – and most important – fun opportunity to hone our advocacy skills and gain some real-world experience interacting with legislators and their staffs. On the last day of the annual conference attendees can travel to D.C., where we will spend about a half-day meeting with our respective state’s legislators or their staff. We typically discuss two or three preselected bills that can directly impact our practice as hospitalists. The legislators and their staffers generally are not aware of how certain legislative items can greatly benefit or adversely affect our patients, and they therefore rely on front-line clinicians like us to provide this narrative, much to their gratitude. I learn a lot and have even more fun each time I go to Capitol Hill, so I strongly encourage everyone to participate in this unique opportunity.
 

Do you have any advice for early-career hospitalists looking to gain experience and get involved with SHM?

I would encourage you to find your voice and participate! Whether by joining a committee or a Special Interest Group or just chatting on one of the many stimulating forums, we each have something to bring to the table, irrespective of our tenure as hospitalists. The new perspectives mingling with those that are well established is what keeps our organization relevant, so I look forward to new ideas and fresh faces!

Ms. Steele is a marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: SHM occasionally puts the spotlight on our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help improve the care of hospitalized patients.

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Ramin Yazdanfar, MD, hospitalist and Harrisburg (Pa.) site medical director at UPMC Pinnacle. Dr. Ramin has been a member of SHM since 2016, has attended two annual conferences as well as Leadership Academy, and together with his team received SHM’s Award of Excellence in Teamwork.
 

How did you learn about SHM and why did you become a member?

I first heard about SHM during my initial job out of residency. At that time, our medical director encouraged engagement in the field of hospital medicine, and he was quite involved in local meetings and national conferences. I became a member because I felt it would be a good way to connect with other hospitalists who might have been going through similar experiences and struggles, and in the hopes of gaining something I could take back to use in my daily practice.

Which SHM conferences have you attended and why?

I have attended two national conferences thus far. The first was the 2016 SHM Annual Conference in San Diego, where our hospitalist team won the Excellence in Teamwork and Quality Improvement Award for our active bed management program under Mary Ellen Pfeiffer, MD, and William “Tex” Landis, MD, among others. I also attended the 2017 Leadership Academy in Scottsdale, Ariz. As a new site director for a new hospitalist group, I thought it would be a valuable learning experience, with the goal of improving my communication as a leader. I also will be attending the 2018 SHM Leadership Academy in Vancouver. I am excited to reconnect with peers I met last year and to advance my leadership skills further.

What were the main takeaways from Leadership: Mastering Teamwork, and how have you applied them in your practice?

My most vivid and actionable memory of Leadership: Mastering Teamwork was the initial session around the five dysfunctions of a team and how to build a cohesive leadership team. Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and open creates the foundation of trust, on which we can build everything else, such as handling conflict and creating commitment, accountability, and results. I have tried to use these principles in our own practice, at UPMC Pinnacle Health in Harrisburg, Pa. We have an ever-growing health system with an expanding regional leadership team. We base our foundation on trust in one another, and in our vision, so the rest follows suit.

As a separate takeaway, I really enjoyed sessions with Leonard Marcus, PhD, on SWARM Intelligence and Meta-Leadership. He is a very engaging speaker whom I would recommend to anyone considering the Mastering Teamwork session.
 

What advice do you have for early-career hospitalists looking to advance their career in hospital medicine?

My advice to early-career hospitalists is to be open to opportunity. There is so much change and development in the field of hospital medicine. While the foundation of our job is in the patient care realm, many of us find a niche that interests us. My advice is pursue it and be open to what follows, without forgetting that we do this for our patients and community.

Ms. Steele is a marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: SHM occasionally puts the spotlight on our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help improve the care of hospitalized patients.

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Ramin Yazdanfar, MD, hospitalist and Harrisburg (Pa.) site medical director at UPMC Pinnacle. Dr. Ramin has been a member of SHM since 2016, has attended two annual conferences as well as Leadership Academy, and together with his team received SHM’s Award of Excellence in Teamwork.
 

How did you learn about SHM and why did you become a member?

I first heard about SHM during my initial job out of residency. At that time, our medical director encouraged engagement in the field of hospital medicine, and he was quite involved in local meetings and national conferences. I became a member because I felt it would be a good way to connect with other hospitalists who might have been going through similar experiences and struggles, and in the hopes of gaining something I could take back to use in my daily practice.

Which SHM conferences have you attended and why?

I have attended two national conferences thus far. The first was the 2016 SHM Annual Conference in San Diego, where our hospitalist team won the Excellence in Teamwork and Quality Improvement Award for our active bed management program under Mary Ellen Pfeiffer, MD, and William “Tex” Landis, MD, among others. I also attended the 2017 Leadership Academy in Scottsdale, Ariz. As a new site director for a new hospitalist group, I thought it would be a valuable learning experience, with the goal of improving my communication as a leader. I also will be attending the 2018 SHM Leadership Academy in Vancouver. I am excited to reconnect with peers I met last year and to advance my leadership skills further.

What were the main takeaways from Leadership: Mastering Teamwork, and how have you applied them in your practice?

My most vivid and actionable memory of Leadership: Mastering Teamwork was the initial session around the five dysfunctions of a team and how to build a cohesive leadership team. Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and open creates the foundation of trust, on which we can build everything else, such as handling conflict and creating commitment, accountability, and results. I have tried to use these principles in our own practice, at UPMC Pinnacle Health in Harrisburg, Pa. We have an ever-growing health system with an expanding regional leadership team. We base our foundation on trust in one another, and in our vision, so the rest follows suit.

As a separate takeaway, I really enjoyed sessions with Leonard Marcus, PhD, on SWARM Intelligence and Meta-Leadership. He is a very engaging speaker whom I would recommend to anyone considering the Mastering Teamwork session.
 

What advice do you have for early-career hospitalists looking to advance their career in hospital medicine?

My advice to early-career hospitalists is to be open to opportunity. There is so much change and development in the field of hospital medicine. While the foundation of our job is in the patient care realm, many of us find a niche that interests us. My advice is pursue it and be open to what follows, without forgetting that we do this for our patients and community.

Ms. Steele is a marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: SHM occasionally puts the spotlight on our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help improve the care of hospitalized patients.

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Ramin Yazdanfar, MD, hospitalist and Harrisburg (Pa.) site medical director at UPMC Pinnacle. Dr. Ramin has been a member of SHM since 2016, has attended two annual conferences as well as Leadership Academy, and together with his team received SHM’s Award of Excellence in Teamwork.
 

How did you learn about SHM and why did you become a member?

I first heard about SHM during my initial job out of residency. At that time, our medical director encouraged engagement in the field of hospital medicine, and he was quite involved in local meetings and national conferences. I became a member because I felt it would be a good way to connect with other hospitalists who might have been going through similar experiences and struggles, and in the hopes of gaining something I could take back to use in my daily practice.

Which SHM conferences have you attended and why?

I have attended two national conferences thus far. The first was the 2016 SHM Annual Conference in San Diego, where our hospitalist team won the Excellence in Teamwork and Quality Improvement Award for our active bed management program under Mary Ellen Pfeiffer, MD, and William “Tex” Landis, MD, among others. I also attended the 2017 Leadership Academy in Scottsdale, Ariz. As a new site director for a new hospitalist group, I thought it would be a valuable learning experience, with the goal of improving my communication as a leader. I also will be attending the 2018 SHM Leadership Academy in Vancouver. I am excited to reconnect with peers I met last year and to advance my leadership skills further.

What were the main takeaways from Leadership: Mastering Teamwork, and how have you applied them in your practice?

My most vivid and actionable memory of Leadership: Mastering Teamwork was the initial session around the five dysfunctions of a team and how to build a cohesive leadership team. Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and open creates the foundation of trust, on which we can build everything else, such as handling conflict and creating commitment, accountability, and results. I have tried to use these principles in our own practice, at UPMC Pinnacle Health in Harrisburg, Pa. We have an ever-growing health system with an expanding regional leadership team. We base our foundation on trust in one another, and in our vision, so the rest follows suit.

As a separate takeaway, I really enjoyed sessions with Leonard Marcus, PhD, on SWARM Intelligence and Meta-Leadership. He is a very engaging speaker whom I would recommend to anyone considering the Mastering Teamwork session.
 

What advice do you have for early-career hospitalists looking to advance their career in hospital medicine?

My advice to early-career hospitalists is to be open to opportunity. There is so much change and development in the field of hospital medicine. While the foundation of our job is in the patient care realm, many of us find a niche that interests us. My advice is pursue it and be open to what follows, without forgetting that we do this for our patients and community.

Ms. Steele is a marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: Each month, the Society of Hospital Medicine puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help improve the care of hospitalized patients.

Why did you become a member of SHM?

After being in a general pediatrics practice for a few years, I saw a lot of value in and got a lot of support from working with other outpatient pediatricians and the American Academy of Pediatrics. When I left that outpatient practice to focus on hospital pediatrics 13 years ago, I needed to find people who knew a lot more than I did about inpatient work and an organization that could support my growth and development in this new role. Of course, SHM was the answer.

I knew there was a ton I could learn from the internists who had been doing this work a lot longer and senior pediatric hospitalists who could share their experiences. I found all of that, and more, and was honored to join the Pediatrics Committee in 2012 to help serve the community that’s helped me so much.
 

During your time on the Pediatrics Committee, what goals were accomplished?

Over the years, this great committee has been very active at the direction of some fantastic leaders. We have had the privilege and responsibility to advise the SHM Board on pediatric issues and concerns, and we’ve developed some interesting pediatric-specific educational content in areas such as quality and safe handoffs. We’ve worked on the Choosing Wisely campaign and are now in the process of updating the Pediatric Hospital Medicine Core Competencies.

Each year we develop the content for the Pediatric Track of the SHM annual conference, and for several years, I was also on the Annual Conference Committee, which was a fantastic opportunity to bring the pediatric world to the broader work of SHM.
 

The Pediatrics Committee is transitioning from a committee to a Pediatric Special Interest Group. What can members look forward to in this transition?

I was asked to lead the subcommittee that is working on the SIG transition, and I must say, I am excited! You know, as great as the Pediatrics Committee is, it’s still only 15-20 people. And there are opportunities for pediatric hospitalists to join other SHM committees, but even at that, the footprint of active, engaged pediatric hospitalists within SHM is fairly small. The transition to a much more open-ended pediatric hospitalist SIG will allow many more hospitalists who take care of children to become involved. That’s more people, from more places, with more perspectives and ideas. It’s more energy, more collaboration, and hopefully, in the long run, a more visible and systemic pediatric presence within SHM.

Sure, there are questions and a few concerns, and I’m not sure all the details have been quite worked out, but in the big picture, I think it’s good for pediatric hospital medicine and good for SHM. Stay tuned as the process develops, but I think SHM members are going to see the new opportunity to get involved directly in SIG projects and goals, collaborate with more pediatric hospitalists, and see some real dynamic and forward-thinking leadership in the SIG executive council ... and opportunities to be on that Executive Council in a transparent, collegial way.
 

What were your main takeaways from Pediatric Hospital Medicine 2017? What can attendees expect at PHM 2018?

The annual Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM) meeting is always a bit of a whirlwind and our meeting in Nashville in 2017, hosted by SHM and our very own board member, Kris Rehm, MD, SFHM, was no different. There is always so much to experience and a diversity of offerings, which is really representative of how broad and rapidly growing our field is.

Of course, the “Top Articles in PHM” review is always popular and well received, and the poster and platform research sessions really show how far PHM has come and how much incredibly detailed and diligent work is being done to advance it further. There were some particularly thought-provoking plenary sessions last year on evidence-based health policy challenges and how some things we take as PHM dogma might not even be true! Left us all scratching our heads a bit. The final plenary on magic and pediatrics was inspiring and hilarious.

As far as PHM 2018, I suppose for full disclosure I should mention that I’m on the planning committee, so of course it’s going to be awesome! We really are putting together a fantastic experience. We had so many high-quality submissions for workshops, clinical sessions, research – truly spanning the whole range of PHM work. Whatever you’re coming to learn about, you’ll find it. We have some tremendously gifted plenary speakers lined up; some are sure to inspire, some will make you smile with pride about being a hospitalist, and at least one will almost certainly crack you up. We’ve shortened the length of many of the workshops to allow attendees to have more experiences while making sure the content is still meaningful. There will be several opportunities to mentor and be mentored in a comfortable, casual setting. I could go on and on, but if you take care of kids, come to Atlanta and see for yourself in July!
 

Do you have any advice for early-stage pediatric hospitalists looking to advance their careers?

This is an exciting time to be a pediatric hospitalist. Like it or hate it, subspecialty designation in PHM is around the corner, the new SHM pediatric SIG is going to open up a new era of opportunities, research in the field is gathering tremendous momentum, and fellowship training is only going to fuel that.

But PHM is still so far from becoming a single, one-size-fits-all path. There is still a huge range of practice locations, settings, responsibilities, and challenges. I tell my junior folks: “Put yourself out there. Try some things. Try a lot of things. If you have opportunities to practice in a few different settings, try it. If there are learners, teach. Join a research or quality improvement group. Go to some big meetings; talk to 50 new people. If you hear someone give a great talk that gets you fired up about something you have a passion for, stick around, go talk with them; they get it, they were you once, and probably not even that long ago. Throw your hat in a ring and help out with a project. It might turn out to not be your ‘thing,’ but it might lead you to your ‘thing.’ Or not, but you’ll come away with some experience and two new friends.”

That’s what makes this journey fun. There is no goal, no endgame. It’s all about the journey and the joy you find in the ride.
 

Ms. Steele is a marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: Each month, the Society of Hospital Medicine puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help improve the care of hospitalized patients.

Why did you become a member of SHM?

After being in a general pediatrics practice for a few years, I saw a lot of value in and got a lot of support from working with other outpatient pediatricians and the American Academy of Pediatrics. When I left that outpatient practice to focus on hospital pediatrics 13 years ago, I needed to find people who knew a lot more than I did about inpatient work and an organization that could support my growth and development in this new role. Of course, SHM was the answer.

I knew there was a ton I could learn from the internists who had been doing this work a lot longer and senior pediatric hospitalists who could share their experiences. I found all of that, and more, and was honored to join the Pediatrics Committee in 2012 to help serve the community that’s helped me so much.
 

During your time on the Pediatrics Committee, what goals were accomplished?

Over the years, this great committee has been very active at the direction of some fantastic leaders. We have had the privilege and responsibility to advise the SHM Board on pediatric issues and concerns, and we’ve developed some interesting pediatric-specific educational content in areas such as quality and safe handoffs. We’ve worked on the Choosing Wisely campaign and are now in the process of updating the Pediatric Hospital Medicine Core Competencies.

Each year we develop the content for the Pediatric Track of the SHM annual conference, and for several years, I was also on the Annual Conference Committee, which was a fantastic opportunity to bring the pediatric world to the broader work of SHM.
 

The Pediatrics Committee is transitioning from a committee to a Pediatric Special Interest Group. What can members look forward to in this transition?

I was asked to lead the subcommittee that is working on the SIG transition, and I must say, I am excited! You know, as great as the Pediatrics Committee is, it’s still only 15-20 people. And there are opportunities for pediatric hospitalists to join other SHM committees, but even at that, the footprint of active, engaged pediatric hospitalists within SHM is fairly small. The transition to a much more open-ended pediatric hospitalist SIG will allow many more hospitalists who take care of children to become involved. That’s more people, from more places, with more perspectives and ideas. It’s more energy, more collaboration, and hopefully, in the long run, a more visible and systemic pediatric presence within SHM.

Sure, there are questions and a few concerns, and I’m not sure all the details have been quite worked out, but in the big picture, I think it’s good for pediatric hospital medicine and good for SHM. Stay tuned as the process develops, but I think SHM members are going to see the new opportunity to get involved directly in SIG projects and goals, collaborate with more pediatric hospitalists, and see some real dynamic and forward-thinking leadership in the SIG executive council ... and opportunities to be on that Executive Council in a transparent, collegial way.
 

What were your main takeaways from Pediatric Hospital Medicine 2017? What can attendees expect at PHM 2018?

The annual Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM) meeting is always a bit of a whirlwind and our meeting in Nashville in 2017, hosted by SHM and our very own board member, Kris Rehm, MD, SFHM, was no different. There is always so much to experience and a diversity of offerings, which is really representative of how broad and rapidly growing our field is.

Of course, the “Top Articles in PHM” review is always popular and well received, and the poster and platform research sessions really show how far PHM has come and how much incredibly detailed and diligent work is being done to advance it further. There were some particularly thought-provoking plenary sessions last year on evidence-based health policy challenges and how some things we take as PHM dogma might not even be true! Left us all scratching our heads a bit. The final plenary on magic and pediatrics was inspiring and hilarious.

As far as PHM 2018, I suppose for full disclosure I should mention that I’m on the planning committee, so of course it’s going to be awesome! We really are putting together a fantastic experience. We had so many high-quality submissions for workshops, clinical sessions, research – truly spanning the whole range of PHM work. Whatever you’re coming to learn about, you’ll find it. We have some tremendously gifted plenary speakers lined up; some are sure to inspire, some will make you smile with pride about being a hospitalist, and at least one will almost certainly crack you up. We’ve shortened the length of many of the workshops to allow attendees to have more experiences while making sure the content is still meaningful. There will be several opportunities to mentor and be mentored in a comfortable, casual setting. I could go on and on, but if you take care of kids, come to Atlanta and see for yourself in July!
 

Do you have any advice for early-stage pediatric hospitalists looking to advance their careers?

This is an exciting time to be a pediatric hospitalist. Like it or hate it, subspecialty designation in PHM is around the corner, the new SHM pediatric SIG is going to open up a new era of opportunities, research in the field is gathering tremendous momentum, and fellowship training is only going to fuel that.

But PHM is still so far from becoming a single, one-size-fits-all path. There is still a huge range of practice locations, settings, responsibilities, and challenges. I tell my junior folks: “Put yourself out there. Try some things. Try a lot of things. If you have opportunities to practice in a few different settings, try it. If there are learners, teach. Join a research or quality improvement group. Go to some big meetings; talk to 50 new people. If you hear someone give a great talk that gets you fired up about something you have a passion for, stick around, go talk with them; they get it, they were you once, and probably not even that long ago. Throw your hat in a ring and help out with a project. It might turn out to not be your ‘thing,’ but it might lead you to your ‘thing.’ Or not, but you’ll come away with some experience and two new friends.”

That’s what makes this journey fun. There is no goal, no endgame. It’s all about the journey and the joy you find in the ride.
 

Ms. Steele is a marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: Each month, the Society of Hospital Medicine puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help improve the care of hospitalized patients.

Why did you become a member of SHM?

After being in a general pediatrics practice for a few years, I saw a lot of value in and got a lot of support from working with other outpatient pediatricians and the American Academy of Pediatrics. When I left that outpatient practice to focus on hospital pediatrics 13 years ago, I needed to find people who knew a lot more than I did about inpatient work and an organization that could support my growth and development in this new role. Of course, SHM was the answer.

I knew there was a ton I could learn from the internists who had been doing this work a lot longer and senior pediatric hospitalists who could share their experiences. I found all of that, and more, and was honored to join the Pediatrics Committee in 2012 to help serve the community that’s helped me so much.
 

During your time on the Pediatrics Committee, what goals were accomplished?

Over the years, this great committee has been very active at the direction of some fantastic leaders. We have had the privilege and responsibility to advise the SHM Board on pediatric issues and concerns, and we’ve developed some interesting pediatric-specific educational content in areas such as quality and safe handoffs. We’ve worked on the Choosing Wisely campaign and are now in the process of updating the Pediatric Hospital Medicine Core Competencies.

Each year we develop the content for the Pediatric Track of the SHM annual conference, and for several years, I was also on the Annual Conference Committee, which was a fantastic opportunity to bring the pediatric world to the broader work of SHM.
 

The Pediatrics Committee is transitioning from a committee to a Pediatric Special Interest Group. What can members look forward to in this transition?

I was asked to lead the subcommittee that is working on the SIG transition, and I must say, I am excited! You know, as great as the Pediatrics Committee is, it’s still only 15-20 people. And there are opportunities for pediatric hospitalists to join other SHM committees, but even at that, the footprint of active, engaged pediatric hospitalists within SHM is fairly small. The transition to a much more open-ended pediatric hospitalist SIG will allow many more hospitalists who take care of children to become involved. That’s more people, from more places, with more perspectives and ideas. It’s more energy, more collaboration, and hopefully, in the long run, a more visible and systemic pediatric presence within SHM.

Sure, there are questions and a few concerns, and I’m not sure all the details have been quite worked out, but in the big picture, I think it’s good for pediatric hospital medicine and good for SHM. Stay tuned as the process develops, but I think SHM members are going to see the new opportunity to get involved directly in SIG projects and goals, collaborate with more pediatric hospitalists, and see some real dynamic and forward-thinking leadership in the SIG executive council ... and opportunities to be on that Executive Council in a transparent, collegial way.
 

What were your main takeaways from Pediatric Hospital Medicine 2017? What can attendees expect at PHM 2018?

The annual Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM) meeting is always a bit of a whirlwind and our meeting in Nashville in 2017, hosted by SHM and our very own board member, Kris Rehm, MD, SFHM, was no different. There is always so much to experience and a diversity of offerings, which is really representative of how broad and rapidly growing our field is.

Of course, the “Top Articles in PHM” review is always popular and well received, and the poster and platform research sessions really show how far PHM has come and how much incredibly detailed and diligent work is being done to advance it further. There were some particularly thought-provoking plenary sessions last year on evidence-based health policy challenges and how some things we take as PHM dogma might not even be true! Left us all scratching our heads a bit. The final plenary on magic and pediatrics was inspiring and hilarious.

As far as PHM 2018, I suppose for full disclosure I should mention that I’m on the planning committee, so of course it’s going to be awesome! We really are putting together a fantastic experience. We had so many high-quality submissions for workshops, clinical sessions, research – truly spanning the whole range of PHM work. Whatever you’re coming to learn about, you’ll find it. We have some tremendously gifted plenary speakers lined up; some are sure to inspire, some will make you smile with pride about being a hospitalist, and at least one will almost certainly crack you up. We’ve shortened the length of many of the workshops to allow attendees to have more experiences while making sure the content is still meaningful. There will be several opportunities to mentor and be mentored in a comfortable, casual setting. I could go on and on, but if you take care of kids, come to Atlanta and see for yourself in July!
 

Do you have any advice for early-stage pediatric hospitalists looking to advance their careers?

This is an exciting time to be a pediatric hospitalist. Like it or hate it, subspecialty designation in PHM is around the corner, the new SHM pediatric SIG is going to open up a new era of opportunities, research in the field is gathering tremendous momentum, and fellowship training is only going to fuel that.

But PHM is still so far from becoming a single, one-size-fits-all path. There is still a huge range of practice locations, settings, responsibilities, and challenges. I tell my junior folks: “Put yourself out there. Try some things. Try a lot of things. If you have opportunities to practice in a few different settings, try it. If there are learners, teach. Join a research or quality improvement group. Go to some big meetings; talk to 50 new people. If you hear someone give a great talk that gets you fired up about something you have a passion for, stick around, go talk with them; they get it, they were you once, and probably not even that long ago. Throw your hat in a ring and help out with a project. It might turn out to not be your ‘thing,’ but it might lead you to your ‘thing.’ Or not, but you’ll come away with some experience and two new friends.”

That’s what makes this journey fun. There is no goal, no endgame. It’s all about the journey and the joy you find in the ride.
 

Ms. Steele is a marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: Each month, SHM puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help SHM improve the care of hospitalized patients.
 

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Meredith K. Wold, PA-C, APC supervisor, Hospital Medicine and Critical Care, at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., and adjunct faculty, Augsburg University Physician Assistant Program. Ms. Wold is a long-time member of SHM and the recipient of this year’s Clinical Excellence Award for Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants.

How did you first hear of SHM and why did you decide to become a member?

I’ve always recognized the importance of engaging in a community beyond my daily practice. Shortly after starting my career in hospital medicine, I quickly recognized this was a belief shared and cultivated by my hospital medicine group as well. Our HM group at HealthPartners has a long history of SHM participation. As our advanced practice clinician (APC) group grew, I knew engagement at the national level was critical to ensure that our ongoing evolution was supported, sustained, and shared.

What does it mean to you to receive SHM’s Clinical Excellence Award for nurse practitioners and physician assistants?

Being awarded the SHM Clinical Excellence Award is remarkable. I work alongside really, really amazing people, and every day I strive toward the exceptionally high bar they set. I’m passionate and committed to hospital medicine, and I’m so very grateful this is appreciated.

Which SHM conferences have you attended? Tell us about some of the highlights from these courses.

The first SHM annual conference I attended was in 2008 in sunny San Diego. I’d been a physician assistant (PA) for barely a year. I remember being so energized by the passion and commitment of the speakers and attendees. I harnessed that energy and spent the next several years being part of a growing APC group at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., where our HM group holds partnership and innovation at its core. You can imagine my excitement when I was asked to speak about APC practice models at HM16. Fellow APC Emily Thornhill Davis and I spoke to a standing-room only audience! Emily and I partnered again as faculty at HM17. I look forward to being part of a panel discussion at HM18 in Orlando (alongside some SHM trailblazers!).

Closer to home, I’ve taken advantage of phenomenal opportunities hosted by our local chapter of SHM. My colleagues Benji Mathews, MD, and Kreegan Reierson, MD, have led Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) training courses regionally and nationally. Their comprehensive, hands-on course ensured that I had the foundation to incorporate portable ultrasound into my practice. Thank goodness for their refresher course as well; my skills were rusty after a long maternity leave!

Given the tremendous clinical growth I have absorbed through local and national SHM offerings, I look forward to my leadership and operations skills being bolstered at SHM’s Leadership Academy this fall in Vancouver. As APCs hold more and more vital roles within HM groups, it’s integral that, along the way, our leadership skills are recognized and honed as well.

As an SHM member of over 10 years, what has been most valuable for you as a physician assistant?

The relationships. Networking, sharing ideas, pushing the status quo with other like-minded clinicians from around the country is invigorating. Because of SHM, I have an APC network from coast to coast – a lattice of clinicians that are linked by dedication and enthusiasm to hospital medicine.

What advice do you have for early-career physician assistants looking to work in hospital medicine?

Find a hospital medicine group whose culture allows and supports your growth as an advanced practice clinician. In an exemplary HM model, the delegated autonomy of an APC should widen and deepen over time. Seek out a team that appreciates the importance of this evolution.

Ms. Steele is marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: Each month, SHM puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help SHM improve the care of hospitalized patients.
 

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Meredith K. Wold, PA-C, APC supervisor, Hospital Medicine and Critical Care, at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., and adjunct faculty, Augsburg University Physician Assistant Program. Ms. Wold is a long-time member of SHM and the recipient of this year’s Clinical Excellence Award for Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants.

How did you first hear of SHM and why did you decide to become a member?

I’ve always recognized the importance of engaging in a community beyond my daily practice. Shortly after starting my career in hospital medicine, I quickly recognized this was a belief shared and cultivated by my hospital medicine group as well. Our HM group at HealthPartners has a long history of SHM participation. As our advanced practice clinician (APC) group grew, I knew engagement at the national level was critical to ensure that our ongoing evolution was supported, sustained, and shared.

What does it mean to you to receive SHM’s Clinical Excellence Award for nurse practitioners and physician assistants?

Being awarded the SHM Clinical Excellence Award is remarkable. I work alongside really, really amazing people, and every day I strive toward the exceptionally high bar they set. I’m passionate and committed to hospital medicine, and I’m so very grateful this is appreciated.

Which SHM conferences have you attended? Tell us about some of the highlights from these courses.

The first SHM annual conference I attended was in 2008 in sunny San Diego. I’d been a physician assistant (PA) for barely a year. I remember being so energized by the passion and commitment of the speakers and attendees. I harnessed that energy and spent the next several years being part of a growing APC group at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., where our HM group holds partnership and innovation at its core. You can imagine my excitement when I was asked to speak about APC practice models at HM16. Fellow APC Emily Thornhill Davis and I spoke to a standing-room only audience! Emily and I partnered again as faculty at HM17. I look forward to being part of a panel discussion at HM18 in Orlando (alongside some SHM trailblazers!).

Closer to home, I’ve taken advantage of phenomenal opportunities hosted by our local chapter of SHM. My colleagues Benji Mathews, MD, and Kreegan Reierson, MD, have led Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) training courses regionally and nationally. Their comprehensive, hands-on course ensured that I had the foundation to incorporate portable ultrasound into my practice. Thank goodness for their refresher course as well; my skills were rusty after a long maternity leave!

Given the tremendous clinical growth I have absorbed through local and national SHM offerings, I look forward to my leadership and operations skills being bolstered at SHM’s Leadership Academy this fall in Vancouver. As APCs hold more and more vital roles within HM groups, it’s integral that, along the way, our leadership skills are recognized and honed as well.

As an SHM member of over 10 years, what has been most valuable for you as a physician assistant?

The relationships. Networking, sharing ideas, pushing the status quo with other like-minded clinicians from around the country is invigorating. Because of SHM, I have an APC network from coast to coast – a lattice of clinicians that are linked by dedication and enthusiasm to hospital medicine.

What advice do you have for early-career physician assistants looking to work in hospital medicine?

Find a hospital medicine group whose culture allows and supports your growth as an advanced practice clinician. In an exemplary HM model, the delegated autonomy of an APC should widen and deepen over time. Seek out a team that appreciates the importance of this evolution.

Ms. Steele is marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: Each month, SHM puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help SHM improve the care of hospitalized patients.
 

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Meredith K. Wold, PA-C, APC supervisor, Hospital Medicine and Critical Care, at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., and adjunct faculty, Augsburg University Physician Assistant Program. Ms. Wold is a long-time member of SHM and the recipient of this year’s Clinical Excellence Award for Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants.

How did you first hear of SHM and why did you decide to become a member?

I’ve always recognized the importance of engaging in a community beyond my daily practice. Shortly after starting my career in hospital medicine, I quickly recognized this was a belief shared and cultivated by my hospital medicine group as well. Our HM group at HealthPartners has a long history of SHM participation. As our advanced practice clinician (APC) group grew, I knew engagement at the national level was critical to ensure that our ongoing evolution was supported, sustained, and shared.

What does it mean to you to receive SHM’s Clinical Excellence Award for nurse practitioners and physician assistants?

Being awarded the SHM Clinical Excellence Award is remarkable. I work alongside really, really amazing people, and every day I strive toward the exceptionally high bar they set. I’m passionate and committed to hospital medicine, and I’m so very grateful this is appreciated.

Which SHM conferences have you attended? Tell us about some of the highlights from these courses.

The first SHM annual conference I attended was in 2008 in sunny San Diego. I’d been a physician assistant (PA) for barely a year. I remember being so energized by the passion and commitment of the speakers and attendees. I harnessed that energy and spent the next several years being part of a growing APC group at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., where our HM group holds partnership and innovation at its core. You can imagine my excitement when I was asked to speak about APC practice models at HM16. Fellow APC Emily Thornhill Davis and I spoke to a standing-room only audience! Emily and I partnered again as faculty at HM17. I look forward to being part of a panel discussion at HM18 in Orlando (alongside some SHM trailblazers!).

Closer to home, I’ve taken advantage of phenomenal opportunities hosted by our local chapter of SHM. My colleagues Benji Mathews, MD, and Kreegan Reierson, MD, have led Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) training courses regionally and nationally. Their comprehensive, hands-on course ensured that I had the foundation to incorporate portable ultrasound into my practice. Thank goodness for their refresher course as well; my skills were rusty after a long maternity leave!

Given the tremendous clinical growth I have absorbed through local and national SHM offerings, I look forward to my leadership and operations skills being bolstered at SHM’s Leadership Academy this fall in Vancouver. As APCs hold more and more vital roles within HM groups, it’s integral that, along the way, our leadership skills are recognized and honed as well.

As an SHM member of over 10 years, what has been most valuable for you as a physician assistant?

The relationships. Networking, sharing ideas, pushing the status quo with other like-minded clinicians from around the country is invigorating. Because of SHM, I have an APC network from coast to coast – a lattice of clinicians that are linked by dedication and enthusiasm to hospital medicine.

What advice do you have for early-career physician assistants looking to work in hospital medicine?

Find a hospital medicine group whose culture allows and supports your growth as an advanced practice clinician. In an exemplary HM model, the delegated autonomy of an APC should widen and deepen over time. Seek out a team that appreciates the importance of this evolution.

Ms. Steele is marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: Each month, the Society of Hospital Medicine puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help SHM improve the care of hospitalized patients.

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Kathleen Finn, MD, M. Phil, FACP, FHM, the inpatient associate program director of the internal medicine residency program at Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, both in Boston. Dr. Finn has been a member of the Society of Hospital Medicine’s Annual Conference Committee for the past 8 years and is the course director for Hospital Medicine 2018 (HM18), to be held April 8-11 in Orlando.
 

When did you become a member of SHM, and how did you initially become involved with the Annual Conference Committee?

I became involved with the Annual Conference Committee 8 years ago because of my interest in education. Being a founding member of the SHM Boston Chapter, I gained experience planning the quarterly local chapter meetings. As a clinical educator and hospitalist, I was involved in planning conferences for faculty at my hospital. I found I really enjoyed developing educational conferences and curriculum, so when I heard about the Annual Conference Committee, I thought it would be a perfect fit.

It’s been a great experience getting to know committee members from all over the country and hearing their thoughts about the annual conference. It’s always exciting to brainstorm topic ideas and think about what would interest conference attendees.

Describe your role as course director.

My job as course director is to challenge committee members to be as creative as possible and help focus the discussion around the needs of SHM members while keeping to a schedule. I led a team of 23 amazing committee members through the planning stages for HM18 this past summer. With the help of Brittany Evans, SHM’s Education and Meetings Project Manager, and Dustin Smith, MD, FHM, the cocourse director, the committee reviewed prior conference agendas and feedback from attendees and from other SHM committees. Using that information, we discussed, brainstormed, voted on, and planned this year’s clinical content talks, workshops, and many of the specialty tracks.

What are you most looking forward to at HM18?

I am looking forward to the entire meeting! First, the location is exciting since this is our first time in Orlando. I’m curious to see what the facility is like, and I am hoping attendees use the location as a reason to bring their families and visit the theme parks. In recognition of our Orlando location, the committee got creative with titles for the conference. For example, geriatrics became “The Tale as Old as Time.” I hope some of the titles put a smile on the attendees’ faces.

I am also eagerly anticipating the nationally recognized speakers. We invited the best speakers we know from both subspecialty backgrounds and fellow hospitalists, and given the Orlando location, we tried to feature the best speakers from the Southeast. Finally, I am looking forward to the diversity of topics. The committee really thought broadly about relevant topics to today’s practicing hospitalists.

What will be new and different for attendees at HM18 in comparison to previous annual conferences?

There are many new things this year. Given the field of hospital medicine is now more than 20 years old, the committee thought it was important to focus on career development – not just for new hospitalists, but midcareer hospitalists as well. How do you make hospital medicine a lifelong, enjoyable, and engaging career? To explore and answer these questions, the Annual Conference Committee created several new tracks for HM18.

We created a Seasoning Your Career track that offers ideas on how to change your role midcareer – how to advance to a leadership position, how to use emotional intelligence to achieve success, how to prevent burnout, and, best of all, how to consider and change your hospitalist group’s work schedule, which rules our lives and our families’ lives. We also added financial planning advice to help you prepare for retirement.

Another new track at HM18 is the Career Development Workshops track, which includes a diversity of workshops meant to help build leadership skills, develop presentation/communication skills, encourage peers to give each other feedback, promote women in hospital medicine, prevent burnout, and turn ideas into clinical research. The Medical Education track also has a session on how to break into educational roles, especially if you want to expand your career into a leadership position in medical education.

In addition to Seasoning Your Career and Career Development Workshops, we have three other new tracks: Palliative Care, NP/PA, and The Great Debate. The Great Debate track uses the popular format of the perioperative debate given every year at the annual conference to tackle topics in infectious disease and pulmonary medicine. We ask very talented, opinionated, and humorous speakers to debate with each other over clinical content; it will be a great “smack down!”

Other new things for HM18 include:

• An interventional radiologist will speak about the latest procedures and when to refer your patients.
• A few surgeons will talk about managing surgical patients on your service and about decubitus ulcers.
• An oncologist will discuss the complications of the latest advanced agents on the wards.
• A rheumatologist will discuss the complications of new biologic agents.
• A rehab specialist will discuss the benefits and limitations of physical/occupational therapists and physiatrists.
• A speaker will discussing vulnerable populations, focusing on the social determinants of health, which last year’s HM17 plenary speaker Karen DeSalvo, MD, MPH, MSc raised as an important issue.
• There will be an “Updates in Addiction Medicine” lecture.
• There will be a new cardiology precourse and an expanded infectious disease precourse, which will also focus on sepsis.

How has the committee worked to ensure the course content is refreshed and current?

The reason the Annual Conference Committee is large is to ensure that there is a diversity of voices and talents from all over the country. There are both academic and community hospitalists on the committee; its members represent internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, and subspecialists, as well as administrators and hospitalist leaders. The annual meetings are planned over 3-4 months via weekly calls. In between calls, committee members are encouraged to discuss topics with their colleagues at home for opinions and advice.

The best ideas from the committee come from the group discussion and brainstorming. Someone mentions a topic, which leads someone else to add to it, and so on. Within the hour, we have some fantastic suggestions that the committee can run with. We also rely on input from SHM members: For example, many of the workshops’ topics are chosen from hundreds of submissions from members; speaker and content suggestions are submitted by hospitalist leaders from around the country and thereby provide insight into current topics. Combined, these offer a richness of ideas, which allows the committee to stay up to date and refresh old ideas.
 

What advice can you offer to early career hospitalists looking to get involved with the Annual Conference Committee or other conference planning roles?

My advice for early career hospitalists is to start locally. Join your local SHM chapter, or start one. In trying to plan local conferences, you begin to figure out which content areas interest hospitalists and how they can best be delivered. You might offer to give a talk at your local chapter or at your hospital and develop presentation skills. Developing a network of fellow hospitalists through your local chapter is important. The more local hospitalists you connect with, the more likely it is that they will think of you when they are planning a conference. At the national level, consider submitting a workshop or submitting an idea for content. Workshops are a great way to get recognized at the national level.

The Annual Conference Committee takes applications every year. Once you have some experience planning conferences or coordinating speakers, it would definitely be worth applying. You may not be selected your first year, but do not let that discourage you! Demonstrating interest and perseverance goes a long way. There are also many other national SHM committees to join and other ways to get involved. Your willingness to provide some of your time makes the society – and the specialty – what it is.
 

Ms. Steele is the marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: Each month, the Society of Hospital Medicine puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help SHM improve the care of hospitalized patients.

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Kathleen Finn, MD, M. Phil, FACP, FHM, the inpatient associate program director of the internal medicine residency program at Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, both in Boston. Dr. Finn has been a member of the Society of Hospital Medicine’s Annual Conference Committee for the past 8 years and is the course director for Hospital Medicine 2018 (HM18), to be held April 8-11 in Orlando.
 

When did you become a member of SHM, and how did you initially become involved with the Annual Conference Committee?

I became involved with the Annual Conference Committee 8 years ago because of my interest in education. Being a founding member of the SHM Boston Chapter, I gained experience planning the quarterly local chapter meetings. As a clinical educator and hospitalist, I was involved in planning conferences for faculty at my hospital. I found I really enjoyed developing educational conferences and curriculum, so when I heard about the Annual Conference Committee, I thought it would be a perfect fit.

It’s been a great experience getting to know committee members from all over the country and hearing their thoughts about the annual conference. It’s always exciting to brainstorm topic ideas and think about what would interest conference attendees.

Describe your role as course director.

My job as course director is to challenge committee members to be as creative as possible and help focus the discussion around the needs of SHM members while keeping to a schedule. I led a team of 23 amazing committee members through the planning stages for HM18 this past summer. With the help of Brittany Evans, SHM’s Education and Meetings Project Manager, and Dustin Smith, MD, FHM, the cocourse director, the committee reviewed prior conference agendas and feedback from attendees and from other SHM committees. Using that information, we discussed, brainstormed, voted on, and planned this year’s clinical content talks, workshops, and many of the specialty tracks.

What are you most looking forward to at HM18?

I am looking forward to the entire meeting! First, the location is exciting since this is our first time in Orlando. I’m curious to see what the facility is like, and I am hoping attendees use the location as a reason to bring their families and visit the theme parks. In recognition of our Orlando location, the committee got creative with titles for the conference. For example, geriatrics became “The Tale as Old as Time.” I hope some of the titles put a smile on the attendees’ faces.

I am also eagerly anticipating the nationally recognized speakers. We invited the best speakers we know from both subspecialty backgrounds and fellow hospitalists, and given the Orlando location, we tried to feature the best speakers from the Southeast. Finally, I am looking forward to the diversity of topics. The committee really thought broadly about relevant topics to today’s practicing hospitalists.

What will be new and different for attendees at HM18 in comparison to previous annual conferences?

There are many new things this year. Given the field of hospital medicine is now more than 20 years old, the committee thought it was important to focus on career development – not just for new hospitalists, but midcareer hospitalists as well. How do you make hospital medicine a lifelong, enjoyable, and engaging career? To explore and answer these questions, the Annual Conference Committee created several new tracks for HM18.

We created a Seasoning Your Career track that offers ideas on how to change your role midcareer – how to advance to a leadership position, how to use emotional intelligence to achieve success, how to prevent burnout, and, best of all, how to consider and change your hospitalist group’s work schedule, which rules our lives and our families’ lives. We also added financial planning advice to help you prepare for retirement.

Another new track at HM18 is the Career Development Workshops track, which includes a diversity of workshops meant to help build leadership skills, develop presentation/communication skills, encourage peers to give each other feedback, promote women in hospital medicine, prevent burnout, and turn ideas into clinical research. The Medical Education track also has a session on how to break into educational roles, especially if you want to expand your career into a leadership position in medical education.

In addition to Seasoning Your Career and Career Development Workshops, we have three other new tracks: Palliative Care, NP/PA, and The Great Debate. The Great Debate track uses the popular format of the perioperative debate given every year at the annual conference to tackle topics in infectious disease and pulmonary medicine. We ask very talented, opinionated, and humorous speakers to debate with each other over clinical content; it will be a great “smack down!”

Other new things for HM18 include:

• An interventional radiologist will speak about the latest procedures and when to refer your patients.
• A few surgeons will talk about managing surgical patients on your service and about decubitus ulcers.
• An oncologist will discuss the complications of the latest advanced agents on the wards.
• A rheumatologist will discuss the complications of new biologic agents.
• A rehab specialist will discuss the benefits and limitations of physical/occupational therapists and physiatrists.
• A speaker will discussing vulnerable populations, focusing on the social determinants of health, which last year’s HM17 plenary speaker Karen DeSalvo, MD, MPH, MSc raised as an important issue.
• There will be an “Updates in Addiction Medicine” lecture.
• There will be a new cardiology precourse and an expanded infectious disease precourse, which will also focus on sepsis.

How has the committee worked to ensure the course content is refreshed and current?

The reason the Annual Conference Committee is large is to ensure that there is a diversity of voices and talents from all over the country. There are both academic and community hospitalists on the committee; its members represent internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, and subspecialists, as well as administrators and hospitalist leaders. The annual meetings are planned over 3-4 months via weekly calls. In between calls, committee members are encouraged to discuss topics with their colleagues at home for opinions and advice.

The best ideas from the committee come from the group discussion and brainstorming. Someone mentions a topic, which leads someone else to add to it, and so on. Within the hour, we have some fantastic suggestions that the committee can run with. We also rely on input from SHM members: For example, many of the workshops’ topics are chosen from hundreds of submissions from members; speaker and content suggestions are submitted by hospitalist leaders from around the country and thereby provide insight into current topics. Combined, these offer a richness of ideas, which allows the committee to stay up to date and refresh old ideas.
 

What advice can you offer to early career hospitalists looking to get involved with the Annual Conference Committee or other conference planning roles?

My advice for early career hospitalists is to start locally. Join your local SHM chapter, or start one. In trying to plan local conferences, you begin to figure out which content areas interest hospitalists and how they can best be delivered. You might offer to give a talk at your local chapter or at your hospital and develop presentation skills. Developing a network of fellow hospitalists through your local chapter is important. The more local hospitalists you connect with, the more likely it is that they will think of you when they are planning a conference. At the national level, consider submitting a workshop or submitting an idea for content. Workshops are a great way to get recognized at the national level.

The Annual Conference Committee takes applications every year. Once you have some experience planning conferences or coordinating speakers, it would definitely be worth applying. You may not be selected your first year, but do not let that discourage you! Demonstrating interest and perseverance goes a long way. There are also many other national SHM committees to join and other ways to get involved. Your willingness to provide some of your time makes the society – and the specialty – what it is.
 

Ms. Steele is the marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: Each month, the Society of Hospital Medicine puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help SHM improve the care of hospitalized patients.

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Kathleen Finn, MD, M. Phil, FACP, FHM, the inpatient associate program director of the internal medicine residency program at Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, both in Boston. Dr. Finn has been a member of the Society of Hospital Medicine’s Annual Conference Committee for the past 8 years and is the course director for Hospital Medicine 2018 (HM18), to be held April 8-11 in Orlando.
 

When did you become a member of SHM, and how did you initially become involved with the Annual Conference Committee?

I became involved with the Annual Conference Committee 8 years ago because of my interest in education. Being a founding member of the SHM Boston Chapter, I gained experience planning the quarterly local chapter meetings. As a clinical educator and hospitalist, I was involved in planning conferences for faculty at my hospital. I found I really enjoyed developing educational conferences and curriculum, so when I heard about the Annual Conference Committee, I thought it would be a perfect fit.

It’s been a great experience getting to know committee members from all over the country and hearing their thoughts about the annual conference. It’s always exciting to brainstorm topic ideas and think about what would interest conference attendees.

Describe your role as course director.

My job as course director is to challenge committee members to be as creative as possible and help focus the discussion around the needs of SHM members while keeping to a schedule. I led a team of 23 amazing committee members through the planning stages for HM18 this past summer. With the help of Brittany Evans, SHM’s Education and Meetings Project Manager, and Dustin Smith, MD, FHM, the cocourse director, the committee reviewed prior conference agendas and feedback from attendees and from other SHM committees. Using that information, we discussed, brainstormed, voted on, and planned this year’s clinical content talks, workshops, and many of the specialty tracks.

What are you most looking forward to at HM18?

I am looking forward to the entire meeting! First, the location is exciting since this is our first time in Orlando. I’m curious to see what the facility is like, and I am hoping attendees use the location as a reason to bring their families and visit the theme parks. In recognition of our Orlando location, the committee got creative with titles for the conference. For example, geriatrics became “The Tale as Old as Time.” I hope some of the titles put a smile on the attendees’ faces.

I am also eagerly anticipating the nationally recognized speakers. We invited the best speakers we know from both subspecialty backgrounds and fellow hospitalists, and given the Orlando location, we tried to feature the best speakers from the Southeast. Finally, I am looking forward to the diversity of topics. The committee really thought broadly about relevant topics to today’s practicing hospitalists.

What will be new and different for attendees at HM18 in comparison to previous annual conferences?

There are many new things this year. Given the field of hospital medicine is now more than 20 years old, the committee thought it was important to focus on career development – not just for new hospitalists, but midcareer hospitalists as well. How do you make hospital medicine a lifelong, enjoyable, and engaging career? To explore and answer these questions, the Annual Conference Committee created several new tracks for HM18.

We created a Seasoning Your Career track that offers ideas on how to change your role midcareer – how to advance to a leadership position, how to use emotional intelligence to achieve success, how to prevent burnout, and, best of all, how to consider and change your hospitalist group’s work schedule, which rules our lives and our families’ lives. We also added financial planning advice to help you prepare for retirement.

Another new track at HM18 is the Career Development Workshops track, which includes a diversity of workshops meant to help build leadership skills, develop presentation/communication skills, encourage peers to give each other feedback, promote women in hospital medicine, prevent burnout, and turn ideas into clinical research. The Medical Education track also has a session on how to break into educational roles, especially if you want to expand your career into a leadership position in medical education.

In addition to Seasoning Your Career and Career Development Workshops, we have three other new tracks: Palliative Care, NP/PA, and The Great Debate. The Great Debate track uses the popular format of the perioperative debate given every year at the annual conference to tackle topics in infectious disease and pulmonary medicine. We ask very talented, opinionated, and humorous speakers to debate with each other over clinical content; it will be a great “smack down!”

Other new things for HM18 include:

• An interventional radiologist will speak about the latest procedures and when to refer your patients.
• A few surgeons will talk about managing surgical patients on your service and about decubitus ulcers.
• An oncologist will discuss the complications of the latest advanced agents on the wards.
• A rheumatologist will discuss the complications of new biologic agents.
• A rehab specialist will discuss the benefits and limitations of physical/occupational therapists and physiatrists.
• A speaker will discussing vulnerable populations, focusing on the social determinants of health, which last year’s HM17 plenary speaker Karen DeSalvo, MD, MPH, MSc raised as an important issue.
• There will be an “Updates in Addiction Medicine” lecture.
• There will be a new cardiology precourse and an expanded infectious disease precourse, which will also focus on sepsis.

How has the committee worked to ensure the course content is refreshed and current?

The reason the Annual Conference Committee is large is to ensure that there is a diversity of voices and talents from all over the country. There are both academic and community hospitalists on the committee; its members represent internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, and subspecialists, as well as administrators and hospitalist leaders. The annual meetings are planned over 3-4 months via weekly calls. In between calls, committee members are encouraged to discuss topics with their colleagues at home for opinions and advice.

The best ideas from the committee come from the group discussion and brainstorming. Someone mentions a topic, which leads someone else to add to it, and so on. Within the hour, we have some fantastic suggestions that the committee can run with. We also rely on input from SHM members: For example, many of the workshops’ topics are chosen from hundreds of submissions from members; speaker and content suggestions are submitted by hospitalist leaders from around the country and thereby provide insight into current topics. Combined, these offer a richness of ideas, which allows the committee to stay up to date and refresh old ideas.
 

What advice can you offer to early career hospitalists looking to get involved with the Annual Conference Committee or other conference planning roles?

My advice for early career hospitalists is to start locally. Join your local SHM chapter, or start one. In trying to plan local conferences, you begin to figure out which content areas interest hospitalists and how they can best be delivered. You might offer to give a talk at your local chapter or at your hospital and develop presentation skills. Developing a network of fellow hospitalists through your local chapter is important. The more local hospitalists you connect with, the more likely it is that they will think of you when they are planning a conference. At the national level, consider submitting a workshop or submitting an idea for content. Workshops are a great way to get recognized at the national level.

The Annual Conference Committee takes applications every year. Once you have some experience planning conferences or coordinating speakers, it would definitely be worth applying. You may not be selected your first year, but do not let that discourage you! Demonstrating interest and perseverance goes a long way. There are also many other national SHM committees to join and other ways to get involved. Your willingness to provide some of your time makes the society – and the specialty – what it is.
 

Ms. Steele is the marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: Each month, the Society of Hospital Medicine puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help SHM improve the care of hospitalized patients.

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Amith Skandhan, MD, FHM, a hospitalist, a director/physician liaison for clinical documentation improvement and core faculty member in the Internal Medicine Residency Program at Southeast Alabama Medical Center in Dothan, Ala., and clinical faculty member at the Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine also in Dothan. Dr. Skandhan is the cofounder and current president of the SHM Wiregrass Chapter and is an active member of SHM’s Annual Conference and Performance Measurement Reporting committees.
 

When did you join SHM, and what prompted you to apply for your current committee roles?

There were many things that were not sufficiently taught during clinical training that were required in my day-to-day practice, like clinical documentation improvement, practice management, billing, coding, and so forth. I also quickly understood how vast and dynamic hospital medicine really was. While looking for an outlet to voice my questions, concerns, and curiosity, I decided to join SHM, which has helped me find and apply the techniques I’d been looking for to further my career as a hospitalist.

I’m now fortunate to be a part of SHM’s national committees, which involve hospitalists of various backgrounds and experiences, who work together to improve the overall quality of inpatient medicine. I currently serve on the Performance Reporting Measurement Committee and the Annual Conference Committee. My interests in reviewing the ever-evolving policies of health care made me apply to be a part of the Performance Reporting Measurement Committee. We work very closely with the Public Policy Committee, analyzing written policies and subsequently offering our recommendations. It’s been fulfilling to be a part of a committee that works towards developing policies that support a good quality of care on such a large scale.

My penchant for organizing events and bringing people together based on common ground led me to apply for the Annual Conference Committee. We meet every week to discuss various topics, choose and invite speakers, and help organize the entire event, which will host close to 5,000 hospitalists later this year. It has made me appreciate being a member of an organization that provides hospitalists with opportunities for education and growth. I’m hopeful that the attendees next year will find the conference to be a worthwhile experience!
 

As the president of SHM’s Wiregrass Chapter, how has the chapter grown since its establishment in May 2015?

Our chapter is based in Dothan, a small, rural Alabama town where Southeast Alabama Medical Center is located. The chapter covers the counties of lower Alabama and the panhandle of Florida. We named the chapter after a special species of grass that grows in this region.

When we started the chapter, our goal was to bring the best and brightest of hospital medicine to our region to give talks on hot topics in the field and also to use their expertise to guide inpatient care in our hospital system. We aggressively marketed the events to bring in large crowds of medical professionals, and we consistently average around 70-80 attendees in our meetings. Bringing in leaders from the field helped create an atmosphere of learning and inspired us to grow and develop our hospitalist program. We now closely work with hospital medicine groups in surrounding rural areas toward improving inpatient hospital care.

During these past years, we also realized that, for the further growth of our chapter, we would need to nurture an interest in hospital medicine among future generations of doctors, and this realization led to the creation of our medical student and resident wing. So far, the students have been very enthusiastic about participating in SHM-related events, and I hope that continues. We also developed a mentor-mentee program, in which we paired selected medical students with hospitalists to help guide future careers in acute care medicine. This year, we have also been helping the hospital medicine division at Southeast Alabama Medical Center create a clinical research track for medical students. To that end, we have just completed our second annual poster competition where we presented around 50 posters in the areas of clinical vignettes, quality improvement, and original research.

In addition, the chapter is very active with community activities. We took notice of the fact that many of our patients and community members were unaware of what hospitalists did because they could not understand how our work was different from that of primary care physicians. Our members have therefore participated in TV, radio, and newspaper interviews to help elucidate the role of hospitalists in patient care. We have also periodically visited primary care physician offices, nursing homes, senior citizen groups, and cancer support groups to educate these patients on various facets of health care and how hospitalists influence these areas.

In 2014, we organized a “walk with a hospitalist” event, for which we set up a half-mile “admission to discharge” scenario explaining the role of hospitalists and other departments involved in patient care. This year, in hopes of improving patient literacy in our region, we held a “shop with a doc” event, where the Southeast Alabama Medical Center hospitalists teamed up with dietitians and taught patients how food and lifestyle influenced their chronic medical illnesses. This was followed by physicians and dietitians shopping with patients in the grocery store, educating them on healthy choices and label reading.

We’re incredibly grateful for the support that we’ve received from our medical and patient communities; they’ve been critical in helping our chapter grow as much as it has, and they motivate us to work harder and do more with the chapter. We were honored to receive the SHM’s Rising Star Award at the Hospital Medicine 2017 conference in Las Vegas. We never thought that our little chapter in the American countryside would be chosen, but we’re very thankful to have our efforts recognized on the national stage!
 

Which SHM conferences have you attended? Tell TH about your most memorable highlights or takeaways.

When I started out as a hospitalist in 2014, I decided to attend the annual conference in Las Vegas, and I can honestly say that conference changed the course of my career. I can still remember listening to the opening speech and realizing that I was surrounded by more than 3,000 hospitalists who understood the power we had to influence inpatient care. I’ve attended all the national conferences since then and am grateful that I now get to help organize the Hospital Medicine 2018 annual conference, also known as HM18.

I had been working to find a way to improve documentation within my group, as well as change the culture and perception towards billing and coding practices, which prompted me to attend the Quality and Safety Educators Academy. During one of the problem-solving sessions, I explained the challenges that I faced to my conference group. The exercise required me to explain the problem at hand, and the players of my group then discussed their thoughts while I took notes. It was a fantastic experience, as the participants at my table offered strong solutions to my problems within a matter of minutes. Their advice led to meaningful changes in our group’s hospital documentation practices, and in turn, I’ve been promoted to physician advisor in Southeast Alabama Medical Center.

After such a great experience at Quality and Safety Educators Academy, I went on to attend SHM’s Leadership Academy, where I had the opportunity to meet some of the top leaders and pioneers in the field of hospital medicine. It’s empowering to be mentored by the very people you look up to and aspire to be like. Not only was I able to bring ideas home to my institution, but I was able to reflect and improve my own professional and personal growth. I’m happy to say that I’ve completed all three levels of Leadership Academy.

As I’ve become involved with the medical student and residency programs at my medical center, I recently attended the Academic Hospitalist Academy to help my transition into academic hospital medicine. Meeting and spending time with the faculty at Academic Hospitalist Academy made me further realize the roles that academic hospitalists play in the education of future physicians, emphasizing the idea that we can all be champions in quality and patient safety.

If you’re looking to advance your career as a hospitalist, take advantage of the conferences that SHM offers. I’ve gained so much from each experience, and I’m looking forward to returning to these conferences as a potential facilitator, in hopes of offering what I’ve learned to hospitalists looking to bring about change in their fields and careers.
 

What can attendees at HM18 expect to see in the area of career development, and how is this different than previous years?

Hospital medicine is only about 2 decades old, making it one of the youngest branches in medicine today. Given this fact, the Annual Conference Committee feels that it is paramount to focus on career development for both new and midcareer hospitalists alike.

One question that we wish to explore and answer this year is: “How do you make hospital medicine a life-long, enjoyable, and engaging career?” In turn, our committee has created several new additions to HM18. This includes a “Seasoning Your Career” track, which will provide ideas on how to advance in leadership, use emotional intelligence to achieve success, change your roles midcareer, and change hospitalist schedules. Another unique addition this year are career development workshops, which will aim to developing various aspects of a hospitalist’s career, such as working on leadership skills, refining presentation and communication skills, providing constructive feedback, promoting women in hospital medicine, preventing burnout, and turning ideas into clinical research. We also plan to incorporate an education track, which will focus on how hospitalists can expand their careers towards educational leadership.
 

Given your involvement in SHM at both the local and national levels, do you have any advice for young hospital medicine professionals looking to build their professional profiles?

I’ve frequently noticed that young hospitalists don’t realize the potential influence they hold within their own institutions or the power they have to elicit change in health care at the national level.

Though we don’t often admit it, some hospitalists feel like they are glorified residents, which definitely is not the case. As a provider on the front lines, you have the unique opportunity to implement changes pertaining to issues of cost, utilization of resources, process management, quality and patient safety, and bottlenecks in care, to name a few. These are issues that keep the administrators of your organization and leaders of hospital medicine up at night. Don’t sit around and complain about how things could be or should be; look toward creating change. Bring up possible solutions to these problems with your leaders. They will appreciate the effort, and hopefully together you can find ways to tackle these problems.

I will conclude by saying this: Hospital medicine is such a unique specialty in that it’s constantly evolving, and the pioneers of this field are still alive and practicing medicine. You can meet and interact with them during the SHM conferences and look to them as sources of inspiration or guidance. Meeting people you look up to and having them as your mentors can take you places.

Ms. Steele is the marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: Each month, the Society of Hospital Medicine puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help SHM improve the care of hospitalized patients.

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Amith Skandhan, MD, FHM, a hospitalist, a director/physician liaison for clinical documentation improvement and core faculty member in the Internal Medicine Residency Program at Southeast Alabama Medical Center in Dothan, Ala., and clinical faculty member at the Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine also in Dothan. Dr. Skandhan is the cofounder and current president of the SHM Wiregrass Chapter and is an active member of SHM’s Annual Conference and Performance Measurement Reporting committees.
 

When did you join SHM, and what prompted you to apply for your current committee roles?

There were many things that were not sufficiently taught during clinical training that were required in my day-to-day practice, like clinical documentation improvement, practice management, billing, coding, and so forth. I also quickly understood how vast and dynamic hospital medicine really was. While looking for an outlet to voice my questions, concerns, and curiosity, I decided to join SHM, which has helped me find and apply the techniques I’d been looking for to further my career as a hospitalist.

I’m now fortunate to be a part of SHM’s national committees, which involve hospitalists of various backgrounds and experiences, who work together to improve the overall quality of inpatient medicine. I currently serve on the Performance Reporting Measurement Committee and the Annual Conference Committee. My interests in reviewing the ever-evolving policies of health care made me apply to be a part of the Performance Reporting Measurement Committee. We work very closely with the Public Policy Committee, analyzing written policies and subsequently offering our recommendations. It’s been fulfilling to be a part of a committee that works towards developing policies that support a good quality of care on such a large scale.

My penchant for organizing events and bringing people together based on common ground led me to apply for the Annual Conference Committee. We meet every week to discuss various topics, choose and invite speakers, and help organize the entire event, which will host close to 5,000 hospitalists later this year. It has made me appreciate being a member of an organization that provides hospitalists with opportunities for education and growth. I’m hopeful that the attendees next year will find the conference to be a worthwhile experience!
 

As the president of SHM’s Wiregrass Chapter, how has the chapter grown since its establishment in May 2015?

Our chapter is based in Dothan, a small, rural Alabama town where Southeast Alabama Medical Center is located. The chapter covers the counties of lower Alabama and the panhandle of Florida. We named the chapter after a special species of grass that grows in this region.

When we started the chapter, our goal was to bring the best and brightest of hospital medicine to our region to give talks on hot topics in the field and also to use their expertise to guide inpatient care in our hospital system. We aggressively marketed the events to bring in large crowds of medical professionals, and we consistently average around 70-80 attendees in our meetings. Bringing in leaders from the field helped create an atmosphere of learning and inspired us to grow and develop our hospitalist program. We now closely work with hospital medicine groups in surrounding rural areas toward improving inpatient hospital care.

During these past years, we also realized that, for the further growth of our chapter, we would need to nurture an interest in hospital medicine among future generations of doctors, and this realization led to the creation of our medical student and resident wing. So far, the students have been very enthusiastic about participating in SHM-related events, and I hope that continues. We also developed a mentor-mentee program, in which we paired selected medical students with hospitalists to help guide future careers in acute care medicine. This year, we have also been helping the hospital medicine division at Southeast Alabama Medical Center create a clinical research track for medical students. To that end, we have just completed our second annual poster competition where we presented around 50 posters in the areas of clinical vignettes, quality improvement, and original research.

In addition, the chapter is very active with community activities. We took notice of the fact that many of our patients and community members were unaware of what hospitalists did because they could not understand how our work was different from that of primary care physicians. Our members have therefore participated in TV, radio, and newspaper interviews to help elucidate the role of hospitalists in patient care. We have also periodically visited primary care physician offices, nursing homes, senior citizen groups, and cancer support groups to educate these patients on various facets of health care and how hospitalists influence these areas.

In 2014, we organized a “walk with a hospitalist” event, for which we set up a half-mile “admission to discharge” scenario explaining the role of hospitalists and other departments involved in patient care. This year, in hopes of improving patient literacy in our region, we held a “shop with a doc” event, where the Southeast Alabama Medical Center hospitalists teamed up with dietitians and taught patients how food and lifestyle influenced their chronic medical illnesses. This was followed by physicians and dietitians shopping with patients in the grocery store, educating them on healthy choices and label reading.

We’re incredibly grateful for the support that we’ve received from our medical and patient communities; they’ve been critical in helping our chapter grow as much as it has, and they motivate us to work harder and do more with the chapter. We were honored to receive the SHM’s Rising Star Award at the Hospital Medicine 2017 conference in Las Vegas. We never thought that our little chapter in the American countryside would be chosen, but we’re very thankful to have our efforts recognized on the national stage!
 

Which SHM conferences have you attended? Tell TH about your most memorable highlights or takeaways.

When I started out as a hospitalist in 2014, I decided to attend the annual conference in Las Vegas, and I can honestly say that conference changed the course of my career. I can still remember listening to the opening speech and realizing that I was surrounded by more than 3,000 hospitalists who understood the power we had to influence inpatient care. I’ve attended all the national conferences since then and am grateful that I now get to help organize the Hospital Medicine 2018 annual conference, also known as HM18.

I had been working to find a way to improve documentation within my group, as well as change the culture and perception towards billing and coding practices, which prompted me to attend the Quality and Safety Educators Academy. During one of the problem-solving sessions, I explained the challenges that I faced to my conference group. The exercise required me to explain the problem at hand, and the players of my group then discussed their thoughts while I took notes. It was a fantastic experience, as the participants at my table offered strong solutions to my problems within a matter of minutes. Their advice led to meaningful changes in our group’s hospital documentation practices, and in turn, I’ve been promoted to physician advisor in Southeast Alabama Medical Center.

After such a great experience at Quality and Safety Educators Academy, I went on to attend SHM’s Leadership Academy, where I had the opportunity to meet some of the top leaders and pioneers in the field of hospital medicine. It’s empowering to be mentored by the very people you look up to and aspire to be like. Not only was I able to bring ideas home to my institution, but I was able to reflect and improve my own professional and personal growth. I’m happy to say that I’ve completed all three levels of Leadership Academy.

As I’ve become involved with the medical student and residency programs at my medical center, I recently attended the Academic Hospitalist Academy to help my transition into academic hospital medicine. Meeting and spending time with the faculty at Academic Hospitalist Academy made me further realize the roles that academic hospitalists play in the education of future physicians, emphasizing the idea that we can all be champions in quality and patient safety.

If you’re looking to advance your career as a hospitalist, take advantage of the conferences that SHM offers. I’ve gained so much from each experience, and I’m looking forward to returning to these conferences as a potential facilitator, in hopes of offering what I’ve learned to hospitalists looking to bring about change in their fields and careers.
 

What can attendees at HM18 expect to see in the area of career development, and how is this different than previous years?

Hospital medicine is only about 2 decades old, making it one of the youngest branches in medicine today. Given this fact, the Annual Conference Committee feels that it is paramount to focus on career development for both new and midcareer hospitalists alike.

One question that we wish to explore and answer this year is: “How do you make hospital medicine a life-long, enjoyable, and engaging career?” In turn, our committee has created several new additions to HM18. This includes a “Seasoning Your Career” track, which will provide ideas on how to advance in leadership, use emotional intelligence to achieve success, change your roles midcareer, and change hospitalist schedules. Another unique addition this year are career development workshops, which will aim to developing various aspects of a hospitalist’s career, such as working on leadership skills, refining presentation and communication skills, providing constructive feedback, promoting women in hospital medicine, preventing burnout, and turning ideas into clinical research. We also plan to incorporate an education track, which will focus on how hospitalists can expand their careers towards educational leadership.
 

Given your involvement in SHM at both the local and national levels, do you have any advice for young hospital medicine professionals looking to build their professional profiles?

I’ve frequently noticed that young hospitalists don’t realize the potential influence they hold within their own institutions or the power they have to elicit change in health care at the national level.

Though we don’t often admit it, some hospitalists feel like they are glorified residents, which definitely is not the case. As a provider on the front lines, you have the unique opportunity to implement changes pertaining to issues of cost, utilization of resources, process management, quality and patient safety, and bottlenecks in care, to name a few. These are issues that keep the administrators of your organization and leaders of hospital medicine up at night. Don’t sit around and complain about how things could be or should be; look toward creating change. Bring up possible solutions to these problems with your leaders. They will appreciate the effort, and hopefully together you can find ways to tackle these problems.

I will conclude by saying this: Hospital medicine is such a unique specialty in that it’s constantly evolving, and the pioneers of this field are still alive and practicing medicine. You can meet and interact with them during the SHM conferences and look to them as sources of inspiration or guidance. Meeting people you look up to and having them as your mentors can take you places.

Ms. Steele is the marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: Each month, the Society of Hospital Medicine puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Visit www.hospitalmedicine.org for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help SHM improve the care of hospitalized patients.

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Amith Skandhan, MD, FHM, a hospitalist, a director/physician liaison for clinical documentation improvement and core faculty member in the Internal Medicine Residency Program at Southeast Alabama Medical Center in Dothan, Ala., and clinical faculty member at the Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine also in Dothan. Dr. Skandhan is the cofounder and current president of the SHM Wiregrass Chapter and is an active member of SHM’s Annual Conference and Performance Measurement Reporting committees.
 

When did you join SHM, and what prompted you to apply for your current committee roles?

There were many things that were not sufficiently taught during clinical training that were required in my day-to-day practice, like clinical documentation improvement, practice management, billing, coding, and so forth. I also quickly understood how vast and dynamic hospital medicine really was. While looking for an outlet to voice my questions, concerns, and curiosity, I decided to join SHM, which has helped me find and apply the techniques I’d been looking for to further my career as a hospitalist.

I’m now fortunate to be a part of SHM’s national committees, which involve hospitalists of various backgrounds and experiences, who work together to improve the overall quality of inpatient medicine. I currently serve on the Performance Reporting Measurement Committee and the Annual Conference Committee. My interests in reviewing the ever-evolving policies of health care made me apply to be a part of the Performance Reporting Measurement Committee. We work very closely with the Public Policy Committee, analyzing written policies and subsequently offering our recommendations. It’s been fulfilling to be a part of a committee that works towards developing policies that support a good quality of care on such a large scale.

My penchant for organizing events and bringing people together based on common ground led me to apply for the Annual Conference Committee. We meet every week to discuss various topics, choose and invite speakers, and help organize the entire event, which will host close to 5,000 hospitalists later this year. It has made me appreciate being a member of an organization that provides hospitalists with opportunities for education and growth. I’m hopeful that the attendees next year will find the conference to be a worthwhile experience!
 

As the president of SHM’s Wiregrass Chapter, how has the chapter grown since its establishment in May 2015?

Our chapter is based in Dothan, a small, rural Alabama town where Southeast Alabama Medical Center is located. The chapter covers the counties of lower Alabama and the panhandle of Florida. We named the chapter after a special species of grass that grows in this region.

When we started the chapter, our goal was to bring the best and brightest of hospital medicine to our region to give talks on hot topics in the field and also to use their expertise to guide inpatient care in our hospital system. We aggressively marketed the events to bring in large crowds of medical professionals, and we consistently average around 70-80 attendees in our meetings. Bringing in leaders from the field helped create an atmosphere of learning and inspired us to grow and develop our hospitalist program. We now closely work with hospital medicine groups in surrounding rural areas toward improving inpatient hospital care.

During these past years, we also realized that, for the further growth of our chapter, we would need to nurture an interest in hospital medicine among future generations of doctors, and this realization led to the creation of our medical student and resident wing. So far, the students have been very enthusiastic about participating in SHM-related events, and I hope that continues. We also developed a mentor-mentee program, in which we paired selected medical students with hospitalists to help guide future careers in acute care medicine. This year, we have also been helping the hospital medicine division at Southeast Alabama Medical Center create a clinical research track for medical students. To that end, we have just completed our second annual poster competition where we presented around 50 posters in the areas of clinical vignettes, quality improvement, and original research.

In addition, the chapter is very active with community activities. We took notice of the fact that many of our patients and community members were unaware of what hospitalists did because they could not understand how our work was different from that of primary care physicians. Our members have therefore participated in TV, radio, and newspaper interviews to help elucidate the role of hospitalists in patient care. We have also periodically visited primary care physician offices, nursing homes, senior citizen groups, and cancer support groups to educate these patients on various facets of health care and how hospitalists influence these areas.

In 2014, we organized a “walk with a hospitalist” event, for which we set up a half-mile “admission to discharge” scenario explaining the role of hospitalists and other departments involved in patient care. This year, in hopes of improving patient literacy in our region, we held a “shop with a doc” event, where the Southeast Alabama Medical Center hospitalists teamed up with dietitians and taught patients how food and lifestyle influenced their chronic medical illnesses. This was followed by physicians and dietitians shopping with patients in the grocery store, educating them on healthy choices and label reading.

We’re incredibly grateful for the support that we’ve received from our medical and patient communities; they’ve been critical in helping our chapter grow as much as it has, and they motivate us to work harder and do more with the chapter. We were honored to receive the SHM’s Rising Star Award at the Hospital Medicine 2017 conference in Las Vegas. We never thought that our little chapter in the American countryside would be chosen, but we’re very thankful to have our efforts recognized on the national stage!
 

Which SHM conferences have you attended? Tell TH about your most memorable highlights or takeaways.

When I started out as a hospitalist in 2014, I decided to attend the annual conference in Las Vegas, and I can honestly say that conference changed the course of my career. I can still remember listening to the opening speech and realizing that I was surrounded by more than 3,000 hospitalists who understood the power we had to influence inpatient care. I’ve attended all the national conferences since then and am grateful that I now get to help organize the Hospital Medicine 2018 annual conference, also known as HM18.

I had been working to find a way to improve documentation within my group, as well as change the culture and perception towards billing and coding practices, which prompted me to attend the Quality and Safety Educators Academy. During one of the problem-solving sessions, I explained the challenges that I faced to my conference group. The exercise required me to explain the problem at hand, and the players of my group then discussed their thoughts while I took notes. It was a fantastic experience, as the participants at my table offered strong solutions to my problems within a matter of minutes. Their advice led to meaningful changes in our group’s hospital documentation practices, and in turn, I’ve been promoted to physician advisor in Southeast Alabama Medical Center.

After such a great experience at Quality and Safety Educators Academy, I went on to attend SHM’s Leadership Academy, where I had the opportunity to meet some of the top leaders and pioneers in the field of hospital medicine. It’s empowering to be mentored by the very people you look up to and aspire to be like. Not only was I able to bring ideas home to my institution, but I was able to reflect and improve my own professional and personal growth. I’m happy to say that I’ve completed all three levels of Leadership Academy.

As I’ve become involved with the medical student and residency programs at my medical center, I recently attended the Academic Hospitalist Academy to help my transition into academic hospital medicine. Meeting and spending time with the faculty at Academic Hospitalist Academy made me further realize the roles that academic hospitalists play in the education of future physicians, emphasizing the idea that we can all be champions in quality and patient safety.

If you’re looking to advance your career as a hospitalist, take advantage of the conferences that SHM offers. I’ve gained so much from each experience, and I’m looking forward to returning to these conferences as a potential facilitator, in hopes of offering what I’ve learned to hospitalists looking to bring about change in their fields and careers.
 

What can attendees at HM18 expect to see in the area of career development, and how is this different than previous years?

Hospital medicine is only about 2 decades old, making it one of the youngest branches in medicine today. Given this fact, the Annual Conference Committee feels that it is paramount to focus on career development for both new and midcareer hospitalists alike.

One question that we wish to explore and answer this year is: “How do you make hospital medicine a life-long, enjoyable, and engaging career?” In turn, our committee has created several new additions to HM18. This includes a “Seasoning Your Career” track, which will provide ideas on how to advance in leadership, use emotional intelligence to achieve success, change your roles midcareer, and change hospitalist schedules. Another unique addition this year are career development workshops, which will aim to developing various aspects of a hospitalist’s career, such as working on leadership skills, refining presentation and communication skills, providing constructive feedback, promoting women in hospital medicine, preventing burnout, and turning ideas into clinical research. We also plan to incorporate an education track, which will focus on how hospitalists can expand their careers towards educational leadership.
 

Given your involvement in SHM at both the local and national levels, do you have any advice for young hospital medicine professionals looking to build their professional profiles?

I’ve frequently noticed that young hospitalists don’t realize the potential influence they hold within their own institutions or the power they have to elicit change in health care at the national level.

Though we don’t often admit it, some hospitalists feel like they are glorified residents, which definitely is not the case. As a provider on the front lines, you have the unique opportunity to implement changes pertaining to issues of cost, utilization of resources, process management, quality and patient safety, and bottlenecks in care, to name a few. These are issues that keep the administrators of your organization and leaders of hospital medicine up at night. Don’t sit around and complain about how things could be or should be; look toward creating change. Bring up possible solutions to these problems with your leaders. They will appreciate the effort, and hopefully together you can find ways to tackle these problems.

I will conclude by saying this: Hospital medicine is such a unique specialty in that it’s constantly evolving, and the pioneers of this field are still alive and practicing medicine. You can meet and interact with them during the SHM conferences and look to them as sources of inspiration or guidance. Meeting people you look up to and having them as your mentors can take you places.

Ms. Steele is the marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: Each month, the Society of Hospital Medicine puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Log on to www.hospitalmedicine.org/getinvolved for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help SHM improve the care of hospitalized patients.

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Lorraine Britting, ANP, SFHM, clinical director of advanced practice in cardiology medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston. Ms. Britting has been an SHM member for over 10 years, has served on various SHM committees, and was one of the first nurse practitioners to earn the Senior Fellow in Hospital Medicine designation.

How did you become a hospital medicine nurse practitioner, and when did you join SHM?

I was a nurse working in a CCU and MICU for 19 years when I graduated from a master’s program as a nurse practitioner (NP) in adult care. I thought I was going to work in the outpatient side after graduation, but my experience was much more suited to hospital medicine.

My first job in 2004 was as a hospitalist in a very small community hospital affiliated with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. I was the first NP to work as an inpatient provider there, which was challenging, but I had the opportunity to wear many hats and be involved with numerous quality initiatives that helped me grow as a provider and a leader. I was working as the clinical manager of three hospitalist programs under the director by the time I left. I now work in inpatient cardiology and am the director of advanced practice providers (APPs) for cardiology medicine. I joined SHM in 2005 when it was a small but rapidly growing society, and I started work on the NP/PA Committee. I was also involved in the Hospital Quality and Patient Safety Committee for 6 years and worked as a peer reviewer for the Journal of Hospital Medicine.
 

Describe your role on the Membership Committee. What is the committee currently working on?

I am finishing my 3rd year on the committee. In the last few months, we have been focusing on member engagement. We have collected information on why members choose to join SHM and what deters potential members from joining SHM and we are developing strategies to build and retain our membership. The Membership Committee also reviews Fellows applications and discusses modifications of requirements each year.

As an NP, I have unique insight into motivations for why other APPs would join SHM and which membership benefits are most valuable. I find that many APPs join SHM because they feel that SHM treats them as equals, not junior members, as in some other physician organizations.
 

What does the Senior Fellow in Hospital Medicine designation mean to you?

I am grateful that SHM allows all members to be a part of the Fellows program, and I was honored to be one of the first NPs to become a Senior Fellow. Many medical societies allow APPs to join but do not offer the opportunity to become Fellows.

The Senior Fellowship application was a rigorous process and required experience in multiple areas, including quality projects, hospital committees, SHM Annual Conference attendance, and other clinical and nonclinical work that advances the profession.
 

As a nurse practitioner, which SHM resources do you find most valuable?

As a specialist NP, it’s easy for me to be current in cardiology but harder to keep current in general medicine. I find the clinical information very helpful to keep me up to date on hospital medicine. The Journal of Hospital Medicine and The Hospitalist are must reads, and the Annual Conference is, of course, very informative. I also enjoy the conversations on the Hospital Medicine Exchange and feel that the Choosing Wisely campaign is an excellent contribution to the goal of cost containment in everyday practice.

One of the best features of SHM is that I can meet other clinicians from around the country and around the world who have innovations or novel ideas that I can bring back to my institution.
 

What advice do you have for nurse practitioners as their role in hospital medicine continues to evolve?

I say to my staff that they should always say yes. Yes to continuing education, yes to opportunities for growth and advancement, yes to promotions, yes to research, etc. Careers develop in nonlinear ways, and you have to follow the opportunities as they come.

Ms. Steele is the marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: Each month, the Society of Hospital Medicine puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Log on to www.hospitalmedicine.org/getinvolved for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help SHM improve the care of hospitalized patients.

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Lorraine Britting, ANP, SFHM, clinical director of advanced practice in cardiology medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston. Ms. Britting has been an SHM member for over 10 years, has served on various SHM committees, and was one of the first nurse practitioners to earn the Senior Fellow in Hospital Medicine designation.

How did you become a hospital medicine nurse practitioner, and when did you join SHM?

I was a nurse working in a CCU and MICU for 19 years when I graduated from a master’s program as a nurse practitioner (NP) in adult care. I thought I was going to work in the outpatient side after graduation, but my experience was much more suited to hospital medicine.

My first job in 2004 was as a hospitalist in a very small community hospital affiliated with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. I was the first NP to work as an inpatient provider there, which was challenging, but I had the opportunity to wear many hats and be involved with numerous quality initiatives that helped me grow as a provider and a leader. I was working as the clinical manager of three hospitalist programs under the director by the time I left. I now work in inpatient cardiology and am the director of advanced practice providers (APPs) for cardiology medicine. I joined SHM in 2005 when it was a small but rapidly growing society, and I started work on the NP/PA Committee. I was also involved in the Hospital Quality and Patient Safety Committee for 6 years and worked as a peer reviewer for the Journal of Hospital Medicine.
 

Describe your role on the Membership Committee. What is the committee currently working on?

I am finishing my 3rd year on the committee. In the last few months, we have been focusing on member engagement. We have collected information on why members choose to join SHM and what deters potential members from joining SHM and we are developing strategies to build and retain our membership. The Membership Committee also reviews Fellows applications and discusses modifications of requirements each year.

As an NP, I have unique insight into motivations for why other APPs would join SHM and which membership benefits are most valuable. I find that many APPs join SHM because they feel that SHM treats them as equals, not junior members, as in some other physician organizations.
 

What does the Senior Fellow in Hospital Medicine designation mean to you?

I am grateful that SHM allows all members to be a part of the Fellows program, and I was honored to be one of the first NPs to become a Senior Fellow. Many medical societies allow APPs to join but do not offer the opportunity to become Fellows.

The Senior Fellowship application was a rigorous process and required experience in multiple areas, including quality projects, hospital committees, SHM Annual Conference attendance, and other clinical and nonclinical work that advances the profession.
 

As a nurse practitioner, which SHM resources do you find most valuable?

As a specialist NP, it’s easy for me to be current in cardiology but harder to keep current in general medicine. I find the clinical information very helpful to keep me up to date on hospital medicine. The Journal of Hospital Medicine and The Hospitalist are must reads, and the Annual Conference is, of course, very informative. I also enjoy the conversations on the Hospital Medicine Exchange and feel that the Choosing Wisely campaign is an excellent contribution to the goal of cost containment in everyday practice.

One of the best features of SHM is that I can meet other clinicians from around the country and around the world who have innovations or novel ideas that I can bring back to my institution.
 

What advice do you have for nurse practitioners as their role in hospital medicine continues to evolve?

I say to my staff that they should always say yes. Yes to continuing education, yes to opportunities for growth and advancement, yes to promotions, yes to research, etc. Careers develop in nonlinear ways, and you have to follow the opportunities as they come.

Ms. Steele is the marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: Each month, the Society of Hospital Medicine puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Log on to www.hospitalmedicine.org/getinvolved for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help SHM improve the care of hospitalized patients.

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Lorraine Britting, ANP, SFHM, clinical director of advanced practice in cardiology medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston. Ms. Britting has been an SHM member for over 10 years, has served on various SHM committees, and was one of the first nurse practitioners to earn the Senior Fellow in Hospital Medicine designation.

How did you become a hospital medicine nurse practitioner, and when did you join SHM?

I was a nurse working in a CCU and MICU for 19 years when I graduated from a master’s program as a nurse practitioner (NP) in adult care. I thought I was going to work in the outpatient side after graduation, but my experience was much more suited to hospital medicine.

My first job in 2004 was as a hospitalist in a very small community hospital affiliated with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. I was the first NP to work as an inpatient provider there, which was challenging, but I had the opportunity to wear many hats and be involved with numerous quality initiatives that helped me grow as a provider and a leader. I was working as the clinical manager of three hospitalist programs under the director by the time I left. I now work in inpatient cardiology and am the director of advanced practice providers (APPs) for cardiology medicine. I joined SHM in 2005 when it was a small but rapidly growing society, and I started work on the NP/PA Committee. I was also involved in the Hospital Quality and Patient Safety Committee for 6 years and worked as a peer reviewer for the Journal of Hospital Medicine.
 

Describe your role on the Membership Committee. What is the committee currently working on?

I am finishing my 3rd year on the committee. In the last few months, we have been focusing on member engagement. We have collected information on why members choose to join SHM and what deters potential members from joining SHM and we are developing strategies to build and retain our membership. The Membership Committee also reviews Fellows applications and discusses modifications of requirements each year.

As an NP, I have unique insight into motivations for why other APPs would join SHM and which membership benefits are most valuable. I find that many APPs join SHM because they feel that SHM treats them as equals, not junior members, as in some other physician organizations.
 

What does the Senior Fellow in Hospital Medicine designation mean to you?

I am grateful that SHM allows all members to be a part of the Fellows program, and I was honored to be one of the first NPs to become a Senior Fellow. Many medical societies allow APPs to join but do not offer the opportunity to become Fellows.

The Senior Fellowship application was a rigorous process and required experience in multiple areas, including quality projects, hospital committees, SHM Annual Conference attendance, and other clinical and nonclinical work that advances the profession.
 

As a nurse practitioner, which SHM resources do you find most valuable?

As a specialist NP, it’s easy for me to be current in cardiology but harder to keep current in general medicine. I find the clinical information very helpful to keep me up to date on hospital medicine. The Journal of Hospital Medicine and The Hospitalist are must reads, and the Annual Conference is, of course, very informative. I also enjoy the conversations on the Hospital Medicine Exchange and feel that the Choosing Wisely campaign is an excellent contribution to the goal of cost containment in everyday practice.

One of the best features of SHM is that I can meet other clinicians from around the country and around the world who have innovations or novel ideas that I can bring back to my institution.
 

What advice do you have for nurse practitioners as their role in hospital medicine continues to evolve?

I say to my staff that they should always say yes. Yes to continuing education, yes to opportunities for growth and advancement, yes to promotions, yes to research, etc. Careers develop in nonlinear ways, and you have to follow the opportunities as they come.

Ms. Steele is the marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: Each month, Society of Hospital Medicine puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Log on to www.hospitalmedicine.org/getinvolved for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help SHM improve the care of hospitalized patients.

What are the requirements to become a Master in Hospital Medicine, and how has this designation been beneficial to your career?

I have been an SHM member since the early years (early 2000s, I think), and I became a Master in Hospital Medicine (MHM) in 2013. I see the MHM designation as recognizing accomplishments that have been critical in advancing the field of hospital medicine and SHM as a society.

I would guess that my contributions to the SHM Board, being SHM president, cofounding (with others) the Academic Hospitalist Academy, founding (with others) the Quality Safety Educators Academy, and being the founding chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine’s Focused Practice in Hospital Medicine pathway were probably what led to my induction.

The salient question probably isn’t “How has this designation been beneficial to my career?” but, rather, “How, after receiving the MHM designation, has my career benefited hospital medicine and SHM?” To my mind, there are some awards in life that recognize excellence in the completion of a task. They herald the end of a finite game: a “best research project” award, for example. But then there are a special few recognitions that, while they recognize past contributions, focus more upon the future than the past. They are infinite recognitions, because implicitly, they are recognitions of “promise” as much as achievement. They convey the organization’s trust in, and high expectations for, the recipient. In sum, they are simultaneously an honor and an obligation … an obligation and an expectation that the recipient will continue to do even more. In academic parlance, being “tenured” is a good example; for the Society of Hospital Medicine, the equivalent is the MHM recognition. I have done a lot for SHM, but the MHM designation obligates me to do even more. Honoring that obligation is what I plan to do with my career.
 

How did you become involved with SHM’s Leadership Academy, and how has the program developed over the years?

I started doing a 1-hour talk when the Mastering Teamwork course started. I did that for a couple of years but, as my career was evolving into higher-level institutional and hospital leadership, there was much more to talk about than I could fit into 1 hour.

The core of my leadership message is based in the “character ethic” (being better than who you are) and not the popular “personality ethic” (looking better than you are). So it’s that … plus all of the leadership mistakes I have made along the way. And that’s a lot of mistakes … enough to fill 9 hours of Mastering Teamwork.
 

In your opinion, what are some of the main takeaways for those who participate in SHM’s Leadership Academy?

Two of the three core components of great leadership are having a mission and purpose and being sincere. Leadership Academy can’t deliver the first two, so participants do have to come prepared to be trained.

Understanding people is the third core component, and mastering that skill is really complex. It is not something you can do with a clever slogan and a new lapel pin. It comes in many forms: teamwork, communication, networking, dealing with crisis, orchestrating change, etc. But at its core, Leadership Academy is all about training future leaders in how to understand people … and to develop the skills to inspire, motivate, and move their team to greater heights. Because at its core, leadership is about getting people to go places they otherwise didn’t want to go and to do things that they didn’t already want to do. And, to do that, you have to understand people.
 

As an active SHM member of many years, what advice do you have for members who wish to get more involved?

You have to start somewhere, and you have to see the entry level years as investing in yourself. There will be sacrifice involved, so don’t expect immediate returns on the investment, and the first few years might not be that fun.

Every year, there is a call for committee membership, and you need to get involved in one or more of those committees. Find the most senior hospitalist, who is the most involved in SHM, and tell her that you want to be on an SHM committee, and could she nominate you? If you do not have that luxury, then pay attention at the SHM annual conference. The SHM president-elect is responsible for building out the SHM committee nominees; as president, you are always looking to find enthusiastic people to be on the committees. Receiving emails from enthusiastic members is more welcome than you might think. As soon as that person is announced, find her email and start making the request to be on a committee. Be open to the assignment: Even if it is not your favorite committee, being there is more important than not.

But remember, networking and reputation are “two tailed.” You can improve your reputation by meaningful and consistent participation on a committee (leading to higher and better leadership opportunities), but you can also tarnish it by being assigned to a committee and not doing anything. You do that once, and there is a high probability that you will not be asked back again.

Great strategy, at the end of the day, is always putting yourself in a position with the maximum number of options. The key to personal development strategy is networking. The more people you know, the higher the probability that your email box will light up with the “Hey, do you want to collaborate on this project together?” sort of emails. Attend the annual conferences, attend the SHM Academies (Leadership, Quality and Safety Educators Academy, Academic Hospitalist Academy, etc.). Build genuine relationships with the people you meet there, and the rest will work out just fine.
 

Ms. Steele is the marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: Each month, Society of Hospital Medicine puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Log on to www.hospitalmedicine.org/getinvolved for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help SHM improve the care of hospitalized patients.

What are the requirements to become a Master in Hospital Medicine, and how has this designation been beneficial to your career?

I have been an SHM member since the early years (early 2000s, I think), and I became a Master in Hospital Medicine (MHM) in 2013. I see the MHM designation as recognizing accomplishments that have been critical in advancing the field of hospital medicine and SHM as a society.

I would guess that my contributions to the SHM Board, being SHM president, cofounding (with others) the Academic Hospitalist Academy, founding (with others) the Quality Safety Educators Academy, and being the founding chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine’s Focused Practice in Hospital Medicine pathway were probably what led to my induction.

The salient question probably isn’t “How has this designation been beneficial to my career?” but, rather, “How, after receiving the MHM designation, has my career benefited hospital medicine and SHM?” To my mind, there are some awards in life that recognize excellence in the completion of a task. They herald the end of a finite game: a “best research project” award, for example. But then there are a special few recognitions that, while they recognize past contributions, focus more upon the future than the past. They are infinite recognitions, because implicitly, they are recognitions of “promise” as much as achievement. They convey the organization’s trust in, and high expectations for, the recipient. In sum, they are simultaneously an honor and an obligation … an obligation and an expectation that the recipient will continue to do even more. In academic parlance, being “tenured” is a good example; for the Society of Hospital Medicine, the equivalent is the MHM recognition. I have done a lot for SHM, but the MHM designation obligates me to do even more. Honoring that obligation is what I plan to do with my career.
 

How did you become involved with SHM’s Leadership Academy, and how has the program developed over the years?

I started doing a 1-hour talk when the Mastering Teamwork course started. I did that for a couple of years but, as my career was evolving into higher-level institutional and hospital leadership, there was much more to talk about than I could fit into 1 hour.

The core of my leadership message is based in the “character ethic” (being better than who you are) and not the popular “personality ethic” (looking better than you are). So it’s that … plus all of the leadership mistakes I have made along the way. And that’s a lot of mistakes … enough to fill 9 hours of Mastering Teamwork.
 

In your opinion, what are some of the main takeaways for those who participate in SHM’s Leadership Academy?

Two of the three core components of great leadership are having a mission and purpose and being sincere. Leadership Academy can’t deliver the first two, so participants do have to come prepared to be trained.

Understanding people is the third core component, and mastering that skill is really complex. It is not something you can do with a clever slogan and a new lapel pin. It comes in many forms: teamwork, communication, networking, dealing with crisis, orchestrating change, etc. But at its core, Leadership Academy is all about training future leaders in how to understand people … and to develop the skills to inspire, motivate, and move their team to greater heights. Because at its core, leadership is about getting people to go places they otherwise didn’t want to go and to do things that they didn’t already want to do. And, to do that, you have to understand people.
 

As an active SHM member of many years, what advice do you have for members who wish to get more involved?

You have to start somewhere, and you have to see the entry level years as investing in yourself. There will be sacrifice involved, so don’t expect immediate returns on the investment, and the first few years might not be that fun.

Every year, there is a call for committee membership, and you need to get involved in one or more of those committees. Find the most senior hospitalist, who is the most involved in SHM, and tell her that you want to be on an SHM committee, and could she nominate you? If you do not have that luxury, then pay attention at the SHM annual conference. The SHM president-elect is responsible for building out the SHM committee nominees; as president, you are always looking to find enthusiastic people to be on the committees. Receiving emails from enthusiastic members is more welcome than you might think. As soon as that person is announced, find her email and start making the request to be on a committee. Be open to the assignment: Even if it is not your favorite committee, being there is more important than not.

But remember, networking and reputation are “two tailed.” You can improve your reputation by meaningful and consistent participation on a committee (leading to higher and better leadership opportunities), but you can also tarnish it by being assigned to a committee and not doing anything. You do that once, and there is a high probability that you will not be asked back again.

Great strategy, at the end of the day, is always putting yourself in a position with the maximum number of options. The key to personal development strategy is networking. The more people you know, the higher the probability that your email box will light up with the “Hey, do you want to collaborate on this project together?” sort of emails. Attend the annual conferences, attend the SHM Academies (Leadership, Quality and Safety Educators Academy, Academic Hospitalist Academy, etc.). Build genuine relationships with the people you meet there, and the rest will work out just fine.
 

Ms. Steele is the marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: Each month, Society of Hospital Medicine puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. Log on to www.hospitalmedicine.org/getinvolved for more information on how you can lend your expertise to help SHM improve the care of hospitalized patients.

What are the requirements to become a Master in Hospital Medicine, and how has this designation been beneficial to your career?

I have been an SHM member since the early years (early 2000s, I think), and I became a Master in Hospital Medicine (MHM) in 2013. I see the MHM designation as recognizing accomplishments that have been critical in advancing the field of hospital medicine and SHM as a society.

I would guess that my contributions to the SHM Board, being SHM president, cofounding (with others) the Academic Hospitalist Academy, founding (with others) the Quality Safety Educators Academy, and being the founding chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine’s Focused Practice in Hospital Medicine pathway were probably what led to my induction.

The salient question probably isn’t “How has this designation been beneficial to my career?” but, rather, “How, after receiving the MHM designation, has my career benefited hospital medicine and SHM?” To my mind, there are some awards in life that recognize excellence in the completion of a task. They herald the end of a finite game: a “best research project” award, for example. But then there are a special few recognitions that, while they recognize past contributions, focus more upon the future than the past. They are infinite recognitions, because implicitly, they are recognitions of “promise” as much as achievement. They convey the organization’s trust in, and high expectations for, the recipient. In sum, they are simultaneously an honor and an obligation … an obligation and an expectation that the recipient will continue to do even more. In academic parlance, being “tenured” is a good example; for the Society of Hospital Medicine, the equivalent is the MHM recognition. I have done a lot for SHM, but the MHM designation obligates me to do even more. Honoring that obligation is what I plan to do with my career.
 

How did you become involved with SHM’s Leadership Academy, and how has the program developed over the years?

I started doing a 1-hour talk when the Mastering Teamwork course started. I did that for a couple of years but, as my career was evolving into higher-level institutional and hospital leadership, there was much more to talk about than I could fit into 1 hour.

The core of my leadership message is based in the “character ethic” (being better than who you are) and not the popular “personality ethic” (looking better than you are). So it’s that … plus all of the leadership mistakes I have made along the way. And that’s a lot of mistakes … enough to fill 9 hours of Mastering Teamwork.
 

In your opinion, what are some of the main takeaways for those who participate in SHM’s Leadership Academy?

Two of the three core components of great leadership are having a mission and purpose and being sincere. Leadership Academy can’t deliver the first two, so participants do have to come prepared to be trained.

Understanding people is the third core component, and mastering that skill is really complex. It is not something you can do with a clever slogan and a new lapel pin. It comes in many forms: teamwork, communication, networking, dealing with crisis, orchestrating change, etc. But at its core, Leadership Academy is all about training future leaders in how to understand people … and to develop the skills to inspire, motivate, and move their team to greater heights. Because at its core, leadership is about getting people to go places they otherwise didn’t want to go and to do things that they didn’t already want to do. And, to do that, you have to understand people.
 

As an active SHM member of many years, what advice do you have for members who wish to get more involved?

You have to start somewhere, and you have to see the entry level years as investing in yourself. There will be sacrifice involved, so don’t expect immediate returns on the investment, and the first few years might not be that fun.

Every year, there is a call for committee membership, and you need to get involved in one or more of those committees. Find the most senior hospitalist, who is the most involved in SHM, and tell her that you want to be on an SHM committee, and could she nominate you? If you do not have that luxury, then pay attention at the SHM annual conference. The SHM president-elect is responsible for building out the SHM committee nominees; as president, you are always looking to find enthusiastic people to be on the committees. Receiving emails from enthusiastic members is more welcome than you might think. As soon as that person is announced, find her email and start making the request to be on a committee. Be open to the assignment: Even if it is not your favorite committee, being there is more important than not.

But remember, networking and reputation are “two tailed.” You can improve your reputation by meaningful and consistent participation on a committee (leading to higher and better leadership opportunities), but you can also tarnish it by being assigned to a committee and not doing anything. You do that once, and there is a high probability that you will not be asked back again.

Great strategy, at the end of the day, is always putting yourself in a position with the maximum number of options. The key to personal development strategy is networking. The more people you know, the higher the probability that your email box will light up with the “Hey, do you want to collaborate on this project together?” sort of emails. Attend the annual conferences, attend the SHM Academies (Leadership, Quality and Safety Educators Academy, Academic Hospitalist Academy, etc.). Build genuine relationships with the people you meet there, and the rest will work out just fine.
 

Ms. Steele is the marketing communications specialist at the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Editor’s note: Each month, SHM puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. For more information on how you can lend your expertise to help SHM improve the care of hospitalized patients, log on to www.hospitalmedicine.org/getinvolved.

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Sandra Gage, MD, PhD, SFHM, associate professor of pediatrics in the section of hospital medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, newly appointed chair of SHM’s Pediatrics Committee, and SHM member of almost 20 years.

Why did you choose a career in pediatric hospital medicine, and how did you become an SHM member?

I would say that pediatric hospital medicine chose me. After obtaining a degree in physical therapy and spending five years treating children with a variety of neurological and neurodevelopmental disorders, I went back to school to get my MD and a PhD in neurobiology, thinking that I would specialize in either pediatric neurology or pediatric physical medicine and rehabilitation.

I always had an interest in treating children but never considered general pediatrics because spending my time in the outpatient clinic setting had little appeal for me. This was before the concept of being a “hospitalist” was widespread – and even before the phrase was coined – but there were a few providers in my academic pediatric group who focused on inpatient care. The pace, variety and challenge of treating hospitalized children was exactly what I was looking for, and, following completion of my pediatric residency, I slowly became a full-time hospitalist.

What is the Pediatrics Committee currently working on, and what do you hope to accomplish during your term as Committee Chair?

With subspecialty status coming soon, rapidly expanding interest in the profession and the introduction of hospitalists into more areas of care, the landscape of pediatric hospital medicine is ever-changing. This amplifies the importance of the Pediatrics Committee’s role. The overall goals of the committee are to promote the growth and development of pediatric hospital medicine as a field and to provide educational and practical resources for individual practitioners.

The 2017-2018 committee comprises enthusiastic members from a wide variety of practice settings. At our first meeting in May, we formulated many exciting and innovative ideas to achieve our goals. As we continue to narrow down our approach and finalize our tasks for the year, we are also beginning to determine the content for the pediatric track at HM18. An example of a project the committee has executed in the past is the development of hospitalist-specific American Board of Pediatrics Maintenance of Certification modules for the SHM Learning Portal. In addition, the 2017 Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM) meeting is hosted by SHM this July in Nashville, and many Pediatrics Committee members are hard at work on finalizing those plans.
 

How has the PHM meeting evolved since its inception, and what value do you find in attending?

I have been an attendee of PHM many times over the years. The meeting has grown from a small group of no more than 100 individuals in a few hotel meeting rooms to more than 1,000 attendees and a wide variety of tracks and offerings. The growth of this meeting is truly reflective of the growth of our subspecialty, and the meeting brings together practitioners, both old and new, in an atmosphere full of innovations and ideas. Like SHM’s annual meeting, the PHM meeting is a great place for learning, sharing, and networking.

What advice do you have for fellow pediatric hospitalists during this transformational time in health care?

The direction of health care has provided fodder for lively discussion since I started my career 20 years ago. The nature of the practice of medicine is evolving, and, as physicians, we must be adept at navigating the changing climate while maintaining our goal of providing excellent care for our patients. As hospitalists, we have the opportunity to be in the forefront of the changes that will impact hospital care and utilization.

Whether our work is done at a local or a national level, as a group or as individuals, I believe that hospitalists will have an active role in directing the course of the future of medicine. We spend much of our clinical time advocating for our patients, but your experience is important and your voice can make an important contribution to the direction of health care for one child or for all children. Whether it is in the hospital hallway or on the Hill, continue to strive to do what you already do best.

Felicia Steele is SHM’s communications coordinator.

Editor’s note: Each month, SHM puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. For more information on how you can lend your expertise to help SHM improve the care of hospitalized patients, log on to www.hospitalmedicine.org/getinvolved.

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Sandra Gage, MD, PhD, SFHM, associate professor of pediatrics in the section of hospital medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, newly appointed chair of SHM’s Pediatrics Committee, and SHM member of almost 20 years.

Why did you choose a career in pediatric hospital medicine, and how did you become an SHM member?

I would say that pediatric hospital medicine chose me. After obtaining a degree in physical therapy and spending five years treating children with a variety of neurological and neurodevelopmental disorders, I went back to school to get my MD and a PhD in neurobiology, thinking that I would specialize in either pediatric neurology or pediatric physical medicine and rehabilitation.

I always had an interest in treating children but never considered general pediatrics because spending my time in the outpatient clinic setting had little appeal for me. This was before the concept of being a “hospitalist” was widespread – and even before the phrase was coined – but there were a few providers in my academic pediatric group who focused on inpatient care. The pace, variety and challenge of treating hospitalized children was exactly what I was looking for, and, following completion of my pediatric residency, I slowly became a full-time hospitalist.

What is the Pediatrics Committee currently working on, and what do you hope to accomplish during your term as Committee Chair?

With subspecialty status coming soon, rapidly expanding interest in the profession and the introduction of hospitalists into more areas of care, the landscape of pediatric hospital medicine is ever-changing. This amplifies the importance of the Pediatrics Committee’s role. The overall goals of the committee are to promote the growth and development of pediatric hospital medicine as a field and to provide educational and practical resources for individual practitioners.

The 2017-2018 committee comprises enthusiastic members from a wide variety of practice settings. At our first meeting in May, we formulated many exciting and innovative ideas to achieve our goals. As we continue to narrow down our approach and finalize our tasks for the year, we are also beginning to determine the content for the pediatric track at HM18. An example of a project the committee has executed in the past is the development of hospitalist-specific American Board of Pediatrics Maintenance of Certification modules for the SHM Learning Portal. In addition, the 2017 Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM) meeting is hosted by SHM this July in Nashville, and many Pediatrics Committee members are hard at work on finalizing those plans.
 

How has the PHM meeting evolved since its inception, and what value do you find in attending?

I have been an attendee of PHM many times over the years. The meeting has grown from a small group of no more than 100 individuals in a few hotel meeting rooms to more than 1,000 attendees and a wide variety of tracks and offerings. The growth of this meeting is truly reflective of the growth of our subspecialty, and the meeting brings together practitioners, both old and new, in an atmosphere full of innovations and ideas. Like SHM’s annual meeting, the PHM meeting is a great place for learning, sharing, and networking.

What advice do you have for fellow pediatric hospitalists during this transformational time in health care?

The direction of health care has provided fodder for lively discussion since I started my career 20 years ago. The nature of the practice of medicine is evolving, and, as physicians, we must be adept at navigating the changing climate while maintaining our goal of providing excellent care for our patients. As hospitalists, we have the opportunity to be in the forefront of the changes that will impact hospital care and utilization.

Whether our work is done at a local or a national level, as a group or as individuals, I believe that hospitalists will have an active role in directing the course of the future of medicine. We spend much of our clinical time advocating for our patients, but your experience is important and your voice can make an important contribution to the direction of health care for one child or for all children. Whether it is in the hospital hallway or on the Hill, continue to strive to do what you already do best.

Felicia Steele is SHM’s communications coordinator.

Editor’s note: Each month, SHM puts the spotlight on some of our most active members who are making substantial contributions to hospital medicine. For more information on how you can lend your expertise to help SHM improve the care of hospitalized patients, log on to www.hospitalmedicine.org/getinvolved.

This month, The Hospitalist spotlights Sandra Gage, MD, PhD, SFHM, associate professor of pediatrics in the section of hospital medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, newly appointed chair of SHM’s Pediatrics Committee, and SHM member of almost 20 years.

Why did you choose a career in pediatric hospital medicine, and how did you become an SHM member?

I would say that pediatric hospital medicine chose me. After obtaining a degree in physical therapy and spending five years treating children with a variety of neurological and neurodevelopmental disorders, I went back to school to get my MD and a PhD in neurobiology, thinking that I would specialize in either pediatric neurology or pediatric physical medicine and rehabilitation.

I always had an interest in treating children but never considered general pediatrics because spending my time in the outpatient clinic setting had little appeal for me. This was before the concept of being a “hospitalist” was widespread – and even before the phrase was coined – but there were a few providers in my academic pediatric group who focused on inpatient care. The pace, variety and challenge of treating hospitalized children was exactly what I was looking for, and, following completion of my pediatric residency, I slowly became a full-time hospitalist.

What is the Pediatrics Committee currently working on, and what do you hope to accomplish during your term as Committee Chair?

With subspecialty status coming soon, rapidly expanding interest in the profession and the introduction of hospitalists into more areas of care, the landscape of pediatric hospital medicine is ever-changing. This amplifies the importance of the Pediatrics Committee’s role. The overall goals of the committee are to promote the growth and development of pediatric hospital medicine as a field and to provide educational and practical resources for individual practitioners.

The 2017-2018 committee comprises enthusiastic members from a wide variety of practice settings. At our first meeting in May, we formulated many exciting and innovative ideas to achieve our goals. As we continue to narrow down our approach and finalize our tasks for the year, we are also beginning to determine the content for the pediatric track at HM18. An example of a project the committee has executed in the past is the development of hospitalist-specific American Board of Pediatrics Maintenance of Certification modules for the SHM Learning Portal. In addition, the 2017 Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM) meeting is hosted by SHM this July in Nashville, and many Pediatrics Committee members are hard at work on finalizing those plans.
 

How has the PHM meeting evolved since its inception, and what value do you find in attending?

I have been an attendee of PHM many times over the years. The meeting has grown from a small group of no more than 100 individuals in a few hotel meeting rooms to more than 1,000 attendees and a wide variety of tracks and offerings. The growth of this meeting is truly reflective of the growth of our subspecialty, and the meeting brings together practitioners, both old and new, in an atmosphere full of innovations and ideas. Like SHM’s annual meeting, the PHM meeting is a great place for learning, sharing, and networking.

What advice do you have for fellow pediatric hospitalists during this transformational time in health care?

The direction of health care has provided fodder for lively discussion since I started my career 20 years ago. The nature of the practice of medicine is evolving, and, as physicians, we must be adept at navigating the changing climate while maintaining our goal of providing excellent care for our patients. As hospitalists, we have the opportunity to be in the forefront of the changes that will impact hospital care and utilization.

Whether our work is done at a local or a national level, as a group or as individuals, I believe that hospitalists will have an active role in directing the course of the future of medicine. We spend much of our clinical time advocating for our patients, but your experience is important and your voice can make an important contribution to the direction of health care for one child or for all children. Whether it is in the hospital hallway or on the Hill, continue to strive to do what you already do best.

Felicia Steele is SHM’s communications coordinator.