American College of Physicians: Internal Medicine — Doctors for Adults ®

Annals of Internal Medicine
Did you know that over 25% of Annals articles published in the past 6 years are relevant to hospital medicine? View all hospitalist articles.

Letter to the Editor

From the December ACP Hospitalist, copyright © 2009 by the American College of Physicians

I recently read “Hospital medicine around the world” (ACP Hospitalist, July 2009) and am now more hopeful about my own hospital’s efforts. I am presently working as a hospitalist in Columbia Asia Hospital in Bangalore, India. Our hospital medicine department was established about a year and a half ago. We are a team of four internists providing 24/7 inpatient care coverage for all internal medicine patients. We also offer consultations to other subspecialties when requested.

We are striving to promote the hospital medicine concept here and are aiming to achieve standards of excellence in patient care and promote better quality of life among physicians. We have been faced with a few challenges. This is a pretty new concept in India, and the first impression of our primary care physician (PCP) colleagues is “A hospitalist taking care of my patients? How would that impact my practice?” We have been trying to impress upon PCPs here the advantages of having a hospitalist: better-quality care, decreased duration of hospital stay, the luxury of patients having a consultant to communicate and address their immediate needs, and above all improved quality of life for PCPs who do not need to deal with the responsibility of inpatient care in the midst of a busy outpatient practice. We are also faced with the challenge of how to give our efforts an academic dimension in terms of teaching and training junior doctors and are looking for structured curricula that might help us in this regard.

Any input from others in our situation would be welcome and appreciated.

Prathima Ramaprasad, MD

Bangalore, India

Top

Share

 
 

Subscribe online

Are you involved in hospital medicine? Then you should be getting ACP Hospitalist and ACP HospitalistWeekly. Subscribe now.

Hospitalist Archives
Quick Links

ACP Hospitalist Weekly

From the February 1, 2012 edition

View issue

Cartoon Caption Contest

ACP HospitalistWeekly wants readers to create captions for this cartoon and help choose the winner. Pen the winning caption and win a $50 gift certificate good toward any ACP product, program or service.

  • No HTML tags permitted.

ACP Career Connection

Looking for a new hospitalist position?

ACP Career Connection can help you find your next job in hospital medicine. Search hospitalist positions nationwide that suit your criteria and preferences. Jobs are posted about two weeks before print publication of Annals of Internal Medicine, ACP Internist, and ACP Hospitalist. Exclusive “Online Direct” opportunities are updated weekly. Check us out online.

ABIM Maintenance of Certification for Hospitalists

Hospital-based internists have the option of maintaining their certification in either Internal Medicine or Internal Medicine with a Focused Practice in Hospital Medicine. Learn more about resources from ACP and the Society for Hospital Medicine to complete both MOC programs.

Internal Medicine 2012

Earn Hospitalist CME credits at Internal Medicine 2012. The hospital medicine track and several pre-courses offer a collection of CME courses designed for hospitalists. Register early and reserve your spot today.

Prepare with the Experts: Live Recert Prep Courses from ACP

Prepare with the Experts: Live Recert Prep Courses from ACPIs it time for you to recertify? ACP MOC courses emphasize the latest advances and developments from the past 10 years, are approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ and are discounted for ACP members!

Upcoming dates and locations include:

ACP Launches Depression Care Guide

ACP Launches Depression Care Guide

This evidence-based, free online resource provides concise, practical information and strategies to enable health professionals to reduce the treatment gaps that exist for depression care.
Access the Guide now.