Hospitalists can make a difference
Growing up in Africa, the daughter of a veterinarian and a nurse, Patience Agborbesong, a physician with the Section on General Internal Medicine, quickly learned the value of hospitals.
The controlled environment of hospitals did not exist. “My parents treated whomever needed them with whatever was at hand, be it chimps and hyenas or humans. There were few doctors, even fewer hospitals. By age nine, I knew how to draw blood and get vitals,” she says.
Today, Dr. Agborbesong is the leader of the Section’s rapidly growing hospitalist program. In 2007, the program doubled in size, going from eight to sixteen full-time hospitalists. The Section is committed to transforming the hospitalist program from an overflow service to one with greater academic and research orientation. A convergence of external forces also is playing a role in the program’s growth, says Dr. Agborbesong. “Primary care physicians are under intense time pressures. Hospital rounds are time-consuming. They can see more patients in less time in their practices. Then there is the issue of patient safety. It is very beneficial in terms of quality of care and safety to have hospitalists available to patients and their families 24/7. Finally, because of limitations on house staff duty hours, academic medical centers like ours must look to new ways to meet clinical demands.”
Dr. Agborbesong says hospitalists add value to academic medical centers as well as community hospitals in many ways. This includes the ability to address patients’ concerns in real time, improve patient safety, and co-manage patients with others on the medical staff such as surgeons. At Wake Forest University, hospitalists will have roles as teaching faculty, researchers and clinicians, as well as looking at ways to meld the practice of hospital medicine with the business of hospital medicine.
The opportunity to shape this emerging discipline is exciting. “Hospitalists can make a difference on many fronts. At this point, there are not limits and we are committed to playing a leadership role,” Dr. Agborbesong says.
Patience Agborbesong, M.D., is an assistant professor and lead hospitalist. She is spearheading the effort to transform the hospitalist program from an overflow service to one with greater emphasis on academics and research.