Pressure to Expand Scope of Practice Extends to Most U.S. Hospitalists

The bottom-line test for Dr. Siegal: Consider the patient’s best interests. Ask yourself, he advises, “if your mother came into the hospital with a head bleed, who would you want her to see first? Hospitalists are not interchangeable with neurosurgeons, and yet, unfortunately, we have started marketing ourselves as being adequate replacements for people who have spent far more time training in a specialty.

“As an intensivist, I’ve got a bit of experience with head bleeds,” he says. “But the neurosurgeon still knows more.”

Gretchen Henkel is a freelance writer in central California.

References

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