I'm changing jobs... Comparing primary care vs hospitalist careers
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ค. 2024
- Deciding between primary care and hospitalist careers? These are two very different jobs! One could say they're rather opposite... In this video, I discuss why I decided to go from a primary care to a hospitalist career.
P.S. I'm back!!!
ABOUT ME:
I'm Monica, an Internal Medicine attending living in Los Angeles. I'm here to provide high-yield videos for medical students and residents. My favorite topics include how to succeed on clinical rotations, clinical skills, and some good old pathophysiology!
![Why I [Easily] Left Hospital Medicine [My Experience]](/img/n.gif)
0:00 - 0:26 Intro
0:27 - 2:08 Life update
2:09 - 3:45 Work schedule
3:46 - 5:07 Time spent talking to people
5:08 - 6:23 Patient-doctor relationship
6:24 - 8:54 Administrative work
8:55 - 10:23 When you’re off, are you REALLY off?
10:24 - 11:21 The Bottom Line
11:22 - 11:49 Outro
I recently transitioned from hospitalist work to primary care and to my surprise I LOVE it. I enjoyed my week on/week off hospitalist job but I needed to sync my schedule up with friends and family. No regrets so far!
All that you mention about primary care is true. Outpatient medicine in the US health care system pretty much drains every single physician. Work is never ending. I actually left my fellowship as an oncologist to become a hospitalist for all the reasons you just described.
Yay! We have a new video! I can't wait to see more video and welcome back to the Hospitalist side! You were one of the nicest resident, chief, resident, and attending I have ever worked with! Good luck and looking forward to more vids!!!!! :)
Aww thank you, Paul!! 🥺 I'm so happy to be back on the hospitalist side haha. Looking forward to working with you, maybe next year??
Great video! It took me going through burnout over a year ago to learn how to be better at my job as a primary care attending. So I wanted to make some comments. Love the part about being an introvert, it can definitely get tiring, but one thing to learn especially for residents transitioning into attending roles or even current attendings that are struggling with this is to learn to direct conversations with patients in order to stay on track but still in a way that patients feel heard. It makes a huge difference. Admin stuff is a beast, totally agree. I had to put some time aside to come up with a workflow that works well. I’m actually creating a couple of videos on this specific topic soon, discussing time management and how I manage my inbasket to reduce risk for burnout but ensure that work gets done. Truly free after work? I think this is a decision each provider has to make for themselves. If you want to do work outside of your work hours, that’s fine. But if you don’t, you don’t have to. A big thing for primary care physicians is to create a strong workflow that works for you and helps you get work done before leaving clinic, so that you create that freedom outside of work. And if you’re out, you can have a colleague/s cover any urgent messages for you. Anything that’s non-urgent you can address when you get back. Compensation is also a big topic in primary care. You definitely want to be well compensated for your work. A couple of things to take into account (this is not all inclusive): 1) the type of work setting you go into - academic, private practice, employed by a large healthcare system, outpatient v inpatient, etc as there is likely to be a difference in pay in each of those, some lower, some higher. 2) if you really want to get paid well, you do have to understand the compensation model that you work in and learn how to maximize compensation based on that. I hope this is helpful for any of you out there!
Just started IM PGY1 year at a major academic hospital. I'm sooo tired haha, these inpatient wards are seriously tough. But I'm so glad that you're going to have more time to be making videos! I always found your videos super duper helpful!!! Would really appreciate a video where you talk about how you navigate ancillary services and discharge planning, since I was shielded from that aspect as a medstudent.
Yay! Thank you so much!! And welcome to IM! Yes, wards are tough no matter where you go. Steep learning curve, but you got it!!! Thanks for the video suggestion! Adding it to the list :)
Good evening Dr Monica, i am not sure if you recalled but you have helped me with some question on Instagram, and I wish you the very best in your transition👍
NP here. I spent 1.5 years in primary care and it was so draining. The paperwork what ridiculous, too much time in the phone. I spent all my time just trying to help my patients afford medication’s or get access to community resources. I felt like I was a social worker more than a nurse practitioner. I prefer the hospital environment because all your resources are available.
Yayy she’s back ! 🎉 Planning on pursuing hospitalist medicine myself, so I’m very excited to hear this going into ERAS season
Future ideas: maybe what to look for among the countless IM residency programs ?
That's awesome! Good luck with applications! I do have a video on how to choose a residency and a few others that might be helpful during the application process! :)
We do need good PCPs, but it is so draining! You are right that the admin is endless, and you are never really off. I took my own overnight call during the week and weekend call for the group once a month. I spent every Saturday finishing up notes. I hope you are as happy as a hospitalist as I am. I love giving report and going home feeling completely free.
Yes, exactly!!! I hated getting paged in the middle of the night when I was on call. And I also spent every evening finishing notes and precharting for the next day. So much extra work on top of seeing patients. I’m much happier as a hospitalist! Glad you are too! ☺️
This is informative and very helpful, Thank you.
Wow you are brave! I’d take primary care over hospitality any day! 😊 I definitely understand where you are coming from though, good luck new job!
Thank you!! Haha yea diff pros and cons for diff people!
Graduating next year, applying for hospitalist job as Family med graduate. Initially thinking for nocturnist, but now day time rounder. Looking forward for another video on nocturnist experience, it would be great if you mention about area that you're working, like east or west. Thanks
Amazing! Congrats on starting your last year of training! Yes, will do another video on this. :)
I just found you! You have a wonderful channel. Could you share your thoughts on NPs? I am thinking about going back to school. Thanks :)
Thank you for the video it is very helpful for me considering moving from hospitalist to primary care. Everything you said is correct. Maybe I’m just tired of hospital as it also gets tiring. 😅
Yay glad it was helpful! Good luck with the career change if you choose to do it!
Hello, Dr. Jeong! If you have time, I would love to learn your stepwise process of how you structure your inpatient admission note (particularly the assessment and plan). Different attendings have instructed me to format my assessment and plan differently, but I'm curious as to how you structure yours. Also, another topic that I'm interested to learn about is how you handle patient handoffs. Taking over a hospitalized patient's care sometimes seems more time-consuming than admitting the patient in the first place. I find myself re-litigating the case and feeling like I'm unable to get through several days of notes fast enough during the pre-rounding period. There must be a more efficient way! Though, admittedly, I probably just need more practice. Any tips are appreciated. Thank you for your channel! I send your videos to my classmates.
Yes happy to help! These are all great ideas for topics. Thanks so much! Some of it does just come with practice, but there are a few tips and tricks I can share!
@@MonicaJeong Thank you, Dr. Jeong! I always look forward to your videos.
I am a PA fellow in hospital medicine and completely agree with all your reasons of why I could not do primary care but we desperately need more outpatient providers like you mentioned. Love working in the hospital and looking forward to more frequent uploads, your videos are great! :D
Thank you!!! 😄
Hi doc
Good clear video with good insights doc
I wish I would see some vlogs of you as a Hospitalist in the near future
Bye doc👋
Thank you!! I'm considering trying vlogs, but it's hard in this line of work! 😭
@@MonicaJeong It's ok doc
Take care doc
Hello, I'm a PGY1 in IM. I'm currently interested in being a nocturnist. Could you please talk about the difference between a daytime hospitalist versus a nocturnal hospitalist, aside from the fact that they work days vs nights? Haha. Thank you!
Yes, great idea!! I'll make a separate short video on this. Thanks for watching! Welcome to IM!
Hi! New to your channel! Do u mind doing an updated hospitality vs PC now that u have experienced both n do u think long term hospitalist is doable? Looking forward to this video pleaseeee...!❤️
Thanks for watching!! I’ve only been doing hospitalist for a couple of months now, so I don’t think my opinion has changed much yet! But I’ll def post if I do! To answer your question, yes, long term hospitalist is definitely doable! :)
Hello! I'll start my third IM year this June, I was trying to look for different websites to look/search for jobs; any recommendations?
Thank you!
How has inpatient been so far Dr. Jeong? Was it 'the grass is always greener' type of situation or are you very happy with the switch and don't miss primary care? I am sure your patients miss you tho ! :)
Thanks for watching! To be totally honest, I don't miss primary care... I definitely made the right choice for me! :) Luckily my patients were left in hands I trust, too.
As soon as a Dr. Jeong video came out I clicked immediately!!! Welcome to the dark side… er I mean hospitalist side hehe :) I’m going to be applying very soon and also excited to start work hopefully as an academic hospitalist. Like you said, primary care is still an excellent field to go into and I still am leaving it open for my career in the future, and that longitudinal patient care really can’t be beat. But hospital medicine still has a lot of advantages as you described which is why I agree it’s the more flexible field at this time! Really looking forward to your future videos, love your edits too! :)
Thank you so much!!! ☺ Yay! Good luck applying for jobs! Totally agree - love the flexibility of the hospitalist life. Thanks for watching!
Hello Mr. Liu
Can you please share the academic hospitalist average salary in the East coast?
Cool, Does hospitalist spend more or less time than primary care with paper work? How many hours? Do you frequently deal with critical cases and death? Thanks!
That is, in my opinion, the only reason to 1) go into medicine, and 2) go into a specific specialty: because you love what medicine/the specialty entails. Don’t go into medicine or a specific specialty because of money. That is a surefire recipe for burnout. If the reason you are going into medicine is money, there are many easier ways to make money.
Totally agree!!
I am interested in become an internist/hsopitalist. I am confused on the residency length. I could not find proper info on the admissions for my uni. I think I remember a video where you sad you did two years of internal medicine and then could specialize in something else after that. Do you have pick a specialty after the two years or can you just go straight to hospital work after the two years of residency? I know the requirements depend on the location. I will find out more details from my uni, but I wanted to see how many years you did.
Awesome! To be an internist or hospitalist, you need to complete residency training in internal medicine, which is 3 years. You can go straight to work after residency! However, there are a few hospitalist fellowships around the country if you want extra training.
Hello! Im a general physician from the philippines. And im planning to take the USMLE and hopefully be matched for IM residency (but its still a long way to go), anyway, the system of residency in the Philippines is slightly different. after training for Internal Medicine for 3 years, youre already considered a consultant, you can have a clinic and you do your rounds for your admitted patients. Is this system the same in the US? I mean, what if you see a patient in the clinics that has to be admitted, do you refer the patient to a hospitalist and they do the referrals to consultants? Hehe i dont have USCE yet, and i hope you can enlighten me... thank you.
Hi! So great to hear from you! In the US, it's the same - after internal medicine residency, you can practice independently. All told, it's 4 years undergraduate + 4 years medical school + 3 years residency. In response to your other question, in the majority of health centers these days, outpatient and inpatient services are totally separate. So if you send a patient from clinic to the hospital, chances are, another physician will be taking care of the patient while they're admitted. I hope that helps!
Too bad that Dr. Jeong quit her TH-cam job 😢 It’d be very helpful to medical students and young doctors if she’d continue posting her videos as she did.
Hi Monica, do hospitalists wear scrubs or a professional attire? I've been seeing mixed things about this
Depends on the culture where you work! At my hospital, before COVID, most attendings wore professional attire. Then when COVID was at its worst, pretty much all attendings switched to scrubs because they were easier to wash every day. Now, it's kind of a mix but still majority scrubs for inpatient medicine. Outpatient docs have mostly all gone back to professional attire. So in sum, you're seeing mixed responses for a reason! :)
About 6 years ago switched to scrubs, and I'm never going back to slacks and button ups. Comfort is king and you don't have to worry about ironing or dry cleaning anything. Money and time saved.
Hi Dr. Jeong, do you notice any disadvantage/cons regarding hospitalist job?
Some people dislike the lack of continuity with patients, the long hours when you are on service, and discharge planning, to name a few!
How to get in contact with you? In a similar boat looking for advise😅
MD here. She forgot to mention pay. But mentioning pay as a physician is looked down upon, especially if you're at an academic place (Hence why she likely left that part out). Nocturnists probably on average make 50-150 K more which is also why many individuals choose the field (the real unfiltered reason, including the other reasons). However nocturnist medicine is typically short term gig for some due to potential sleep/health issues it may cause over time (the switching of circadian rhythm and overall slightly less total sleep which leads to other downstream health effects). Some factors to consider before considering to do it long term, at least from what nocturnists have told me. Good vid overall though. Best of luck.
Pay is definitely an important factor when choosing a job! I didn't even realize I left it out because it wasn't a factor in my own personal decision to make a career change. I actually took a 100K pay CUT to become a nocturnist because now I don't have the productivity bonus that primary care physicians can get from seeing so many patients. The extra money wasn't worth my lack of happiness.
I'm a nocturnist too 🙋🏻♂️
this is my dream . do you have any advice for img ? what does it take to match to become a hospitalists . do they focus on research?
You can become a hospitalist as long as you went to an internal medicine residency program in the US! There isn't a big focus on research in the hospitalist field, so I wouldn't worry about that.
The FM and Paediatric residency can lead to be a hospitalist.
Hi Monica, which city are you? Thank you
I’m in Los Angeles! :)
Damn I should not have chose primary care this sounds horrible. You made it picture clear.
PCPs need to be paid wayy more
My issue with hospitalist is that you also become a pseudo social worker