National Imperative
“We are the champions.”
The emotion-triggering tune that blares nightly at sports stadiums across the country was pretty much a slogan at SHM’s annual meeting, held April 8-11 at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Md., just outside Washington, D.C.
From new SHM President Jeff Weise’s use of the lyric to analogize HM’s arrival as a force in healthcare reform to the Hall of Fame-tinged ceremony inducting the first three Masters in Hospital Medicine—John Nelson, Robert Wachter, and Winthrop Whitcomb—this once-a-year gathering is no longer about seeking respect as a specialty. It’s blossomed into a sold-out, four-day strategy session looking at various ways to improve the delivery of care to patients.
“What we say is going to be taken seriously,” said Dr. Wiese, MD, FACP, SFHM, associate professor of medicine at Tulane University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. “Which means that it has to be the right message—which means that it has to be about patient care.” HM10