Working as a Hospitalist Internationally

Hospital medicine is the fastest-growing medical specialty in the U.S., and it’s gaining popularity in other countries throughout the world. Although there are many similarities in how hospital medicine is practiced in different countries, profound differences also exist due to a variety of factors. In Pakistan, the care-delivery model for hospitalists is still very traditional. An internist provides both inpatient and outpatient care. “Unfortunately, the healthcare system doesn’t see value in dedicated full-time inpatient consultants (hospitalists) for a variety of reasons, e.g., a lack of knowledge of the U.S. system and a lack of support from larger private healthcare institutions as well as federal and provincial governments,” said Muhammad Haroon Khan, MBBS, a diplomat of the American Board of Internal Medicine, a consultant hospitalist, and a physician at Aga Khan University Hospital, a 700-bed academic tertiary care hospital in Karachi, Pakistan. Along these lines, Dr. Khan said a significant hurdle is acceptance by healthcare authorities—in both the private and government sectors—to understand the value hospitalists bring to the healthcare industry.