6 Ways Telemedicine Can Boost Your Career as a Hospitalist
Most physicians already know that telemedicine can offer lifestyle benefits such as working from home and the opportunity to be close to family. But, telemedicine, even practiced part-time, can significantly advance a hospitalist’s professional career.
1. Expand Your Clinical Skills with Diverse Patient Populations
Telemedicine enables hospitalists to work with a wide range of patient populations, from those receiving care in urban tertiary facilities to those in smaller rural and critical access care hospitals. These diverse settings offer a stimulating environment that can sharpen physicians’ clinical and management skills.
Dr. Paulgun Sulur, vice president of medical services and hospitalist service line chief for Access TeleCare explains that working as a teleHospitalist gives him exposure to patients with a wider range of conditions and needs than a traditional hospitalist practice had provided. “I had always worked in urban centers where if I wanted a neurosurgeon, I could call a neurosurgeon and get one at bedside within 12–24 hours, depending on the urgency,” Sulur said. “As a teleHospitalist, you develop your own medical toolkit and figure things out. That’s a very elemental thing that can be appealing to certain doctors. And that’s not something I had before I made the dive into a telemedicine career.”
By gaining experience in diverse clinical settings, hospitalists can become more adaptable and resourceful.
2. Navigate Different Health Systems
Working within different health systems exposes hospitalists to various electronic medical records (EMRs) and gives them firsthand experience with different patient transfers and disease management protocols.
Dr. Sulur explains the value of this experience: “When you have a primary role in person, you kind of get locked into that system. I think there’s so much value to learning different hospital systems, learning how they do things, and sometimes I’ve learned to become more efficient when I’m dealing with more challenging environments because I learned how to adapt — and if you’ve gained that kind of adaptability, that’s a positive for your career.”
3. Get a Better Understanding of Telemedicine’s Use Within Hospitals and Health Systems
As telemedicine’s use increases and teleHospitalist services become more embedded in hospital operations, hospitalists with telemedicine experience will be at an advantage as they pursue leadership roles. “Developing those skills helps you understand better how hospital systems work,” says Dr. Sulur. “If you aspire to move into a leadership role, understanding how health systems utilize telemedicine tools is crucial.”
4. Supplement Your Income While Maintaining a Healthy Work-life Balance.
Many hospitalists turn to locum tenens work as a route to earn more money while filling supply-demand gaps for hospitalist care around the country.
Yet, if the goal is to supplement your income, Dr. Sulur recommends teleHospitalist work as a more sustainable path to doing that: “More power to my colleagues who can do locums work, but I do think that there is a long-term cost of being away from your family. I always pitch telemedicine as more of a long play, being able to have longevity, being close to home, being in a home office.”
By taking on telemedicine work when it works for them, hospitalists can increase their earning potential without overextending themselves.
5. Pursuing Entrepreneurial Opportunities
Telemedicine’s flexibility not only benefits work-life balance but also opens doors for entrepreneurial pursuits. The ability to work remotely and maintain a flexible schedule means hospitalists interested in the business or research side of medicine can invest time in clinical research, assume leadership roles in startups, or grow a passion project without sacrificing their primary career.
6. Increasing Career Longevity by Reducing Burnout
Finally, telemedicine can help alleviate burnout by offering a change of pace from the traditional hospital setting.
As Dr. Sulur emphasized, it’s often not even the in-person stresses of the work that most affect physicians — sometimes it’s simply being away from family or missing kids’ bedtimes and special events that are most wearing. “We went through so much burnout during the pandemic in every specialty, but hospitalist medicine was up there. TeleHospitalist work allows you to maintain a high-level professional career and reduce time away from family,” said Dr. Sulur.
Learn more about a hospitalist role with Access TeleCare here.
