As a hospitalist, can you leave after you see all your patients?

[psychMDhopefully]

There are hospitalist at our school that leave at 4pm everyday, one of them told me their schedule was 7-7, but they leave when they get finished seeing patients. Is this a regular thing for most groups? If something happens between the hours of 4-7, who is held responsible? Does the hospitalist have to comeback to the hospital, or are there usually midlevels there to keep watch?

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[gutonc]

There are hospitalist at our school that leave at 4pm everyday, one of them told me their schedule was 7-7, but they leave when they get finished seeing patients. Is this a regular thing for most groups? If something happens between the hours of 4-7, who is held responsible? Does the hospitalist have to comeback to the hospital, or are there usually midlevels there to keep watch?

As with all scheduling questions, "it depends". The hospital where I work (not as a hospitalist mind you), if you're just rounding for the day, you can leave when you're done and you sign out to the swing doc who will then sign out to the night doc. If you're admitting, you stay until the end of your shift.

 

[Doc_Mcstuffins]

At hospitals I've worked at, yes you can leave when work is done but most have an unwritten rule to help out their fellow hospitalists to stay until a certain time, maybe 4-4:30 if you happen to finish work before then. You must answer your pages at home until 7pm, too much for admitter to be busy admitting and cross cover everyone's patients in early evening hours.

A few places require you to stay in house until a certain time with a more formal policy. So as said in earlier response, it depends...

 

[Raryn]

Depends on your relationship with the nurses and fellow hospitalists. If you're done with your notes/orders/whatever and you leave, just understand if there's an emergency with one of your patients and the !@#$ hits the fan, *someone* has to see them. Many hospitalist groups have a "you scratch my back, I scratch yours" informal policy where they cover for each other for that sort of thing, but it's variable.