Free form: Stages of hospitalist leadership transition

As the ranks of hospital medicine continue to swell, the need for leadership development is becoming increasingly important. Much like an airplane without a pilot, a hospital medicine group without strong and well-trained leaders is bound to implode and fail in its mission. Leadership development is an especially big challenge for hospital medicine–a subspecialty with a large proportion of relatively young physicians thrust into positions traditionally reserved for more experienced individuals. Nevertheless, hospitalists are in a unique position to establish themselves as forward-thinking practitioners laying the found for medical leadership.

The leadership transition from hospitalist to hospitalist leader generally occurs in five predictable stages of unpredictable duration. Those stages are:

• Stage I: Take hold (orientation, evaluation, and corrective action)
• Stage II: Immersion (Exploratory learning and managing business)
• Stage III: Reshaping (Acting on revised concept)
• Stage IV: Consolidation (Evaluative learning, follow-through, and corrective action)
• Stage V: Refinement (Period of calm, slow incremental learning, and credibility and power base establishment)

The above excerpt is adapted from The Hospitalist Program Management Guide, 2nd edition, by Kenneth G. Simone, DO, and Jeffrey R. Dichter, MD, FACP, published by HCPro, Inc., Marblehead, MA.

You can download the detailed version of the “Stages of Hospitalist Leadership” document here.