Program in Hospital Medicine

In 1996, the term “hospitalist” was originally coined by Robert Wachter, MD, and Lee Goldman, MD, to describe internal medicine physicians with a specific skillset, focused on the care of patients admitted to the hospital. Since that time, hospitalists, and the field of hospital medicine, have grown exponentially in number and impact, both locally and nationally. Hospital medicine has become the largest subspecialty group within internal medicine, and hospitalists play integral roles in clinical care, research, and administration at nearly every tertiary medical center in the country. Hospitalists are leaders in care innovation and systems thinking, efficiency and throughput, medical education, patient safety, and quality improvement.

The first hospitalist physician was hired at Yale New Haven Hospital in the late 1990’s. Now, there are 100+ hospitalists practicing at Yale New Haven Hospital’s York Street Campus alone. In 2010, Yale School of Medicine created an academic hospitalist group within the Section of General Internal Medicine with the specific aim to empower and mentor hospitalists to excel in both clinical care and research.

In the last decade, this group has achieved a significant impact on clinical care, research, and education within the Department of Internal Medicine. During this time, hospital medicine jobs have become the overwhelmingly most common destination for residents graduating from our three internal medicine residency training programs (Traditional, Primary Care, and Medicine-Pediatrics), with over 70 hospital medicine positions taken by graduates over the last five years alone. To meet this educational need, the Department of Internal Medicine and internal medicine residency training programs created an inpatient training experience for trainees called the Hospital Medicine Firm, which pairs hospitalists and senior resident physicians in an “apprenticeship” model. The desire to continue to expand the education and mentorship of faculty and provide a desirable destination for graduating trainees are the guiding principles for the Program in Hospital Medicine. The program also maintains a close partnership with the Yale New Haven Hospital Northeast Medical Group (NEMG) hospitalist physicians.

From 2017 to 2020, Sarwat Chaudhry, MD, served as director of the Program in Hospital Medicine. In September 2020, Chris Sankey, MD, FACP, SFHM, was appointed as director of the Program.