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The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

—Marcel Proust

Hospitals can be complex, challenging, and dehumanizing for both patients and practitioners. In a national survey, up to half of hospitalists were affected by burnout and scored highly on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization scales.1

Yet hospitals are also ripe with meaningful stories. In addition to patients’ narratives, the stories of multidisciplinary team members who make quality patient care possible reveal that we are bound together in more ways than we realize. Now, we have the opportunity to tell these stories.

This issue of Journal of Hospital Medicine introduces a new series: In the Hospital. Through selected interviews we explore the day-to-day lives of members of our hospital team. Highlighting the “team” in healthcare has been a longstanding focus of JHM, but we also hope that this series will demonstrate how each individual we meet with is not only a critical part of how patients receive care but is also an important member of our community.

We invite readers to appreciate the common threads that bind these pieces together. These stories will introduce us to individuals who have discrete and often disparate job descriptions, but all of them care about patients and want the best for them. Some are frustrated with the health care system and the constraints it places on our efficiency. Many of them worry about how to balance the demands of work with the need to be available for their families and friends. Many are trying their best to maintain their humanism, build resilience, and sustain themselves in ways that meet their personal goals for excellence, empathy, and fulfillment.

This series begins with the story of a palliative-care clinical chaplain whose life experience and perspective brings to light issues of resilience, meaning, and purpose. Future stories in this series will include a variety of providers across a spectrum of practice environments. We look forward to engaging you in this journey and welcome feedback and contributions.

Disclosures

The authors have nothing to disclose.

References

1. Roberts DLShanafelt TDDyrbye LNWest CP. A national comparison of burnout and work-life balance among internal medicine hospitalists and out- patient general internists. J Hosp Med. 2014;9(3),176-181. PubMed

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Issue
Journal of Hospital Medicine 13(3)
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Topics
Page Number
202
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Article PDF
Article PDF

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

—Marcel Proust

Hospitals can be complex, challenging, and dehumanizing for both patients and practitioners. In a national survey, up to half of hospitalists were affected by burnout and scored highly on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization scales.1

Yet hospitals are also ripe with meaningful stories. In addition to patients’ narratives, the stories of multidisciplinary team members who make quality patient care possible reveal that we are bound together in more ways than we realize. Now, we have the opportunity to tell these stories.

This issue of Journal of Hospital Medicine introduces a new series: In the Hospital. Through selected interviews we explore the day-to-day lives of members of our hospital team. Highlighting the “team” in healthcare has been a longstanding focus of JHM, but we also hope that this series will demonstrate how each individual we meet with is not only a critical part of how patients receive care but is also an important member of our community.

We invite readers to appreciate the common threads that bind these pieces together. These stories will introduce us to individuals who have discrete and often disparate job descriptions, but all of them care about patients and want the best for them. Some are frustrated with the health care system and the constraints it places on our efficiency. Many of them worry about how to balance the demands of work with the need to be available for their families and friends. Many are trying their best to maintain their humanism, build resilience, and sustain themselves in ways that meet their personal goals for excellence, empathy, and fulfillment.

This series begins with the story of a palliative-care clinical chaplain whose life experience and perspective brings to light issues of resilience, meaning, and purpose. Future stories in this series will include a variety of providers across a spectrum of practice environments. We look forward to engaging you in this journey and welcome feedback and contributions.

Disclosures

The authors have nothing to disclose.

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

—Marcel Proust

Hospitals can be complex, challenging, and dehumanizing for both patients and practitioners. In a national survey, up to half of hospitalists were affected by burnout and scored highly on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization scales.1

Yet hospitals are also ripe with meaningful stories. In addition to patients’ narratives, the stories of multidisciplinary team members who make quality patient care possible reveal that we are bound together in more ways than we realize. Now, we have the opportunity to tell these stories.

This issue of Journal of Hospital Medicine introduces a new series: In the Hospital. Through selected interviews we explore the day-to-day lives of members of our hospital team. Highlighting the “team” in healthcare has been a longstanding focus of JHM, but we also hope that this series will demonstrate how each individual we meet with is not only a critical part of how patients receive care but is also an important member of our community.

We invite readers to appreciate the common threads that bind these pieces together. These stories will introduce us to individuals who have discrete and often disparate job descriptions, but all of them care about patients and want the best for them. Some are frustrated with the health care system and the constraints it places on our efficiency. Many of them worry about how to balance the demands of work with the need to be available for their families and friends. Many are trying their best to maintain their humanism, build resilience, and sustain themselves in ways that meet their personal goals for excellence, empathy, and fulfillment.

This series begins with the story of a palliative-care clinical chaplain whose life experience and perspective brings to light issues of resilience, meaning, and purpose. Future stories in this series will include a variety of providers across a spectrum of practice environments. We look forward to engaging you in this journey and welcome feedback and contributions.

Disclosures

The authors have nothing to disclose.

References

1. Roberts DLShanafelt TDDyrbye LNWest CP. A national comparison of burnout and work-life balance among internal medicine hospitalists and out- patient general internists. J Hosp Med. 2014;9(3),176-181. PubMed

References

1. Roberts DLShanafelt TDDyrbye LNWest CP. A national comparison of burnout and work-life balance among internal medicine hospitalists and out- patient general internists. J Hosp Med. 2014;9(3),176-181. PubMed

Issue
Journal of Hospital Medicine 13(3)
Issue
Journal of Hospital Medicine 13(3)
Page Number
202
Page Number
202
Publications
Publications
Topics
Article Type
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© 2018 Society of Hospital Medicine 

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"Steven M. Ludwin, MD", University of California, San Francisco, Division of Hospital Medicine, 505 Parnassus Ave, U138, Box 0131, San Francisco, California 94143; Telephone: 415-476-4814; E-mail: steven.ludwin@ucsf.edu
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