Several Physician Types You Might Encounter in the Hospital

The Hospitalist movement is a relatively new development, yet it is becoming increasingly popular. Hospitals of every size are introducing hospitalist programs to provide inpatient care. Even though, there are multiple benefits to having a hospitalist team in your institution, there is one obvious drawback – the patients, for the most part, are unable to choose the treating physician. Instead, the patients are usually randomly distributed at the morning report. From a patient perspective that means that they will get “stuck” with whoever is on that day.

There are several types of inpatient physicians that I have encountered in my practice.

Here they are:

The Academician
This physician has a tremendous amount of theoretical knowledge and is able to give you a lecture on any given topic in medicine. Unfortunately, all this knowledge does not always translate into good patient care. The “human aspect” of medical care often irritates and annoys these physicians. This type of doctor does better in an academic practice.

The “Nerd”
This doctor enjoys his/her work and strives to provide excellent care for the patients. He is always excited to talk about an interesting medical case or problem. This type of a doctor tends to overmanage the patient by trying to address every single issue before discharge. For this reason, the patients often stay longer in the Hospital since “there is just one more thing to fix before they go home”. In general, the “nerd” spends a lot of time in the patient room and is often being involved in conversation not directly related to the patient’ medical condition. This takes a lot of time and often makes for very long rounds for this doctor.

Mr/Ms Efficiency
This kind of a doctor knows what he or she is doing and tends to concentrate on the most important issues. If the patient is admitted with pneumonia, there is no reason to order an MRI for chronic back pain since it could be done as on outpatient. This type of doctor tends to redirect the conversation with the patient while taking the medical history. Sometimes, it is necessary to interrupt the patient if the conversation is going nowhere. Despite all of this, the patients usually are quite satisfied with their care since things are being done quickly and efficiently. The patients are in and out of the Hospital which is good for the patients and the bottom line.

The OCD
This Doctor takes everything personal. Unexpected adverse outcome might cause a significant amount of stress for this physician. Patient care is excellent but at a cost of personal distress and even marital problems for this doctor. This doctor is always late to leave the hospital which adds even more problems. There is always something going on and the inability to flip the switch and go home makes this physician miserable.

The “Lone Ranger”
This kind of a doctor is suited best for working night shift. Routine rounding and interaction with the patient and the family is not his thing. If the hospitalist program has one or two of those physicians, developing a nocturnalist program may be a good idea.

The Slacker
This type of a doctor is simply dangerous. The physician does not really know what he or she is doing and doesn’t really care. The notes are often unreadable and pretty much useless. It’s a total nightmare to assume care of the patient after this physician signs off the service. Often, the patient will tell you more about what is going on than the sign-out from this doctor. The patients are often kept in the hospital longer just so that somebody else can discharge them once this doctor is off the service.

These are just a few “extreme” types of the doctors you will encounter in the inpatient setting. This “classification” is based on work ethics and attitude towards patients. These are not meant to address doctor’s personality traits. Doctors, like everybody else, could be classified as whiners, complainers, angry type or even psychotic.

In reality, most of us represent a mix of the types described above. We all have a little bit of everything (yes, even lazy type) and different parts of our personality come up depending on the circumstances. Well, it’s like that saying: “Nobody is perfect”.