Newly certified general internists mainly choose hospital medicine as their career path, according to a study published in Annals of Internal Medicine. Bruce E. Landon, MD, MBA, MSc, and colleagues measured changes in practice setting among 67,902 general internists, comprising 80% of all internists certified from 1990-2017. Both hospitalists and outpatient-only physicians increased as percentages of general internists from 2008-2018 (25% to 40% and 23% to 38%, respectively). This increase was accompanied by a decline from 52% to 23% in the percentage of mixed-practice physicians, as these physicians mainly migrated to outpatient only practice. By 2018, 71% and 8% of newly certified general internists practiced as hospitalists and outpatient-only physicians, respectively. Most hospitalists (86%) in 2013 had the same practice type 5 years later. This rate of retention was similar across early-career and more senior physicians (85% and 86% for those initially certified in 1999 and 2012, respectively) and for the outpatient-only practice type (95%).
