Dr. Suchita Sata's decision to pursue academic hospital medicine as a career was largely influenced by a hospital medicine elective during her residency at U Penn. When she joined Duke GIM faculty in 2015, she knew she wanted to give Duke residents that same opportunity.
"I recognized that our internal medicine residents got a lot of great exposure to general medicine, but didn't have a dedicated elective to focus on what it meant to be an academic hospitalist and what that looked like as a career."
Suchita Sata, M.D.
Sata met with residency leadership and together they developed a two week elective for senior residents that showed what a career as an academic hospitalist could look like and the value a hospitalist brings to a university medical center.
Administrative duties explained
"We focus on core concepts of clinical practice and encourage the residents to have a 'pre-attending' role of near-autonomous practice with a hospitalist attending where they own the care for their patients from admission to discharge," explains Sata.
This also helps the residents understand nuances missing in their general medicine rotations, for example, hospital flow, discharge, billing and documentation, etc. The highlight of administrative responsibilities by hospitalists is what really makes this elective unique.
This is the third year for this elective at Duke. Twenty residents have participated, including three of the four current chief residents (Drs. Lowe, Sloan, and Hayes).
Hospitalists as consultants and QI leaders
We heard these remarks from Dr. Jared Lowe, Chief Resident, DUH: "The Academic Hospital Medicine elective was a great opportunity to see all that a career in hospital medicine could offer, including the role of internists as hospital consultants for other medical specialties and as playing a key part in health system quality improvement initiatives. It gave me a much better appreciation for all the work it takes to successfully run a complex health system like Duke Health."
Dr. Caroline Sloan, Chief Resident, DRH and ambulatory medicine told us: "The elective allowed me to get an insider’s perspective on how the Hospitalist and General Medicine services are run, from the perspective of full-time clinicians, all the way up to hospital administrators. I participated in mortality review meetings, sat in on QI discussions, and was able to contribute to efforts to improve hospitalist's experiences with Epic. These clinical and administrative experiences gave me a true flavor of what it would be like to work as a hospitalist in an academic setting."
Interested?
Want to learn more about the academic hospital elective? Reach out to leadership:
- Suchita Sata, MD - Director
- Yasmin Marcantonio, MD - Associate Director