Browse By Topic and Related Items
Related Items
- Filed under: Features, Cover Story, News
- Keywords: respect, recognition, communication, award
N.C. Hospital Names Hospitalist Its Physician of the Year
From: The eWire, 9.1.2010
Colleagues praise Suzanne Wilson, MD, for her congeniality with patients
by Alexandra Schultz
Suzanne Wilson, MD, is a self-proclaimed “outdoor-sy girl”—so much so that when the opportunity arose to work as a hospitalist in the golf mecca of Pinehurst, N.C., she didn’t think twice.
“My husband and I wanted to live somewhere we wanted to be,” says Dr. Wilson, a hospitalist for 10 years.
Pinehurst is home to one of the world’s most elegant and famous golf resorts, but it was at Moore Regional Hospital that Dr. Wilson was recently named Physician of the Year. She is Moore Regional’s first hospitalist to receive the honor.
The award process begins with the nurses, who are in charge of nominations. An independent board “reads the stories” about the nominees and their outstanding care, then chooses the winner.
Although Dr. Wilson says she was “stunned” when she was told she received the award, her colleagues were not. “Dr. Wilson is a consistent professional. It’s the way she relates to patients; her manner is very comfortable and easy going, and her ability to communicate with them—it’s like going home,” says Katherine Marsh, an oncology nurse at Moore Regional.
Dan Barnes, MD, director of the 23-hospitalist program at Moore Regional, says Dr. Wilson’s extensive interaction with the hospital’s nurses has helped improve the relationship between doctors and other staff.
“She is a true advocate for quality improvement and is always willing to help with that,” Dr. Barnes says, citing a soon-to-be-live Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) initiative at the hospital, a project for which Dr. Wilson serves as officer.
Dr. Wilson’s focus on forging relationships between varying medical staff can be traced back to her early exposure to medicine. She grew up in southern Indiana with an RN mother and medical photographer father. She says that combination made for “interesting dinner conversations” as a child.
“We have to keep asking ourselves, ‘How can we do this better?'” Dr. Wilson says. “It’s all about the patient.”
current issue
January 2012
The Hospitalist newsmagazine reports on issues and trends in hospital medicine. The Hospitalist reaches more than 25,000 hospitalists, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, residents, and medical administrators interested in the practice and business of hospital medicine.
Copyright © 2000–2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. or related companies. All rights reserved.
ISSN: 1553-085X
