Hospital Changes for the Worse

This is something that really bothers me. At one time doctors use to see their patients when they were in the hospital but now they are seen by hospitalists instead who have very little knowledge about amyloidosis. Even though my husband’s specialists are affiliated with Yale they never saw him while he was in the hospital.

The irony is that a primary care physician will refer a patient to a specialist if they don’t have the knowledge to treat a medical condition but a hospitalist will treat life threatening medical issues in a hospital instead of having that patient seen by a specialist who knows their medical history and is affiliated with the hospital

I gave amyloidosis as an example because my husband was diagnosed with amyloidosis in 2018 and died from complications of that life threatening disease in June of this year. However, it applies to other serious medical conditions that are treated in a hospital, as well.

In my opinion, a major factor in these hospital changes for the worse is the health insurance industry.

Agreed. Medicine is so secretive that it might as well be classified when it comes to competition.

I’m not sure this is all bad, nor is it absolute. Yes hospitals use resident doctors now called hospitalists. But I see regular mention of hospital credentials for various doctors. Indeed, there is surely no way most hospitals can keep significant wide staffing of specialists.

For example, wife had heart issues and met her cardiologist in hospital. Nurse Terror was insisting she hadda have another cath when this guy showed up, introduced himself, and calmed her almost instantly. He studied her condition and referred to an expert that he knew could handle it, an expert not within his own practice! That expert in turn referred her to a damn fine surgeon who sawed her and she survived. We credit that cardiologist with her very life.

Yes there is a lot of bad, but we see some good too.

The hospitalists I am referring to are not not medical residents. They are primary care physicians who have chosen to have a full time position working at a hospital instead of having their own medical practice. When a patient is admitted to a hospital a hospitalist is assigned to take care of them instead of their own doctor.