What Exactly is a Hospitalist?

By :Layna Harris

There are all kinds of occupations in the hospital. Even in one visit, you can meet a variety of people from doctors and nurses to janitors and IT personnel. Every hospital worker plays a unique and important role. For example, a nurse provides direct patient care by doing things like administering medicine and monitoring vital signs. One lesser known job in the hospital is called the hospitalist, but what exactly is a hospitalist? What do they do, and how do you become one?

A hospitalist is different from a usual physician or nurse practitioner because they only take care of admitted hospital patients. Furthermore, while a physician covers patients in outpatient groups or office settings, hospitalists do not have an outside-the-hospital practice and do not see regular patients, only admitted ones. However, the occupation encompasses complex tasks just like the non-hospitalist counterpart. They treat a wide range of diseases and conditions while specializing in general hospital medicine. Furthermore, they perform diagnoses, carry out treatments, test new hospital guidelines, facilitate communication and cooperation, and transport patients throughout the hospital. If that sounds like your kind of thing, consider becoming a hospitalist! Operating around the clock while working with admitted patients is a more attractive idea to some people compared to having clinical hours and treating patients in an operating room or the emergency department. If that seems appealing, that would be another strong reason to be a hospitalist.

Becoming a hospitalist is not something that will happen overnight, as with most occupations in healthcare. To be specific, it usually takes over a decade! But of course, it will definitely be worth the work. The first step is to earn an undergraduate, or Bachelor's, degree after you graduate high school. You can major in what you wish, but you must take prerequisite courses for medical school like biology and chemistry. In addition, you should keep up your G.P.A. while preparing for and taking the MCAT. Then, you must apply to medical school and matriculate into a MD or OD degree program. Once you graduate, you have to enter residency and complete the one for the occupation you want to do (Family medicine, Pediatrics, etc.). Once you finish and get board certified you can complete a hospitalist fellowship if desired. Finally, you will be able to practice as a hospitalist!

Overall, a hospitalist is a unique position in a hospital. Hospitalists only take care of admitted hospital patients, not patients in operation rooms or the E.D. A hospitalist can practice many different kinds of medicine, such as family medicine and internal medicine. The hospital functions the best when communication is effective and patient care smoothly transitions, and hospitalists are a vital part in upholding this important workflow. Everyone comes together in the hospital to assist patients, whether it is in the emergency department or in the admitting room.

Works Cited

Marly Greely Medical Center. “What the Heck Is a Hospitalist?” Mgmc.org, 2024, www.mgmc.org/health-connect/archive/hospitalist/.

Society of Hospital Medicine. “What Is Hospital Medicine, and What Is a Hospitalist? - SHM | Society of Hospital Medicine.” SHM | Society of Hospital Medicine, 27 June 2025, www.hospitalmedicine.org/about-shm/what-is-a-hospitalist/.\

Torres, Callie. “How to Become a Hospitalist?- Six Steps from Undergrad to Licensing in Hospital Medicine.” Www.umhs-Sk.org, www.umhs-sk.org/blog/how-to-become-a-hospitalist.