Meet the Hospitalist

The doctor in charge of your hospital care is probably someone you've never met. Four questions change that. Every year, 36 million Americans — one in nine of us — are admitted to the hospital. And the physician running the show from check-in to discharge usually isn't the primary care doctor you know. It's a hospitalist: a physician who works only in the hospital, managing the care of admitted patients. Most people don't learn that until they're already in a hospital bed. Dr. Clark Coler has seen hospital medicine from every side. The son of a small-town internist who made house calls with a black bag, trained at the Mayo Clinic where patients' humanity comes first, he became one of Seattle's first hospitalists when the movement launched in 1994 — and he's spent more than 30 years caring for patients at the most frightening moments of their lives. In this conversation, Clark demystifies who actually runs your hospital care, why the shift structure matters to your family, the best (and worst) days to be admitted, why discharge is where mistakes happen — and the exact questions that get you and the people you love better, safer care. Link to full show notes: https://www.wellsaidhealth.com/meet-the-hospitalist/