It is rare to find a children’s hospital without a hospitalist division or at least a group of pediatricians who solely provide inpatient care to children whose medical homes prevent their primary care pediatrician from rounding on them when admitted. These hospitalists over the past two decades have found themselves carving out a unique set of duties and responsibilities as they focus not just on being attendings of record for inpatients, but on areas like quality, safety, and research on value-based care and standardization of care pathways—all of which have resulted in advanced training for individuals wanting to practice exclusively in the inpatient setting. In some children’s hospitals, hospitalist fellowships have sprung up but until recently, these fellowships were “unofficial” given that pediatric hospital medicine (PHM) was not viewed as a board-certifiable specialty. Well the time has come according to a special article by Barrett et al. (10.1542/peds.2016-1823) who represented a subcommittee of the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) charged with deciding whether PHM should be a new pediatric subspecialty. In this article, the strengths and challenges that the ABP considered are laid out in a comprehensive fashion as well as the evidence that was considered that led to the ABP recommending to the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) that PHM become a new subspecialty of the ABP. Since this article was submitted, the ABMS has agreed with the ABP to create this new subspecialty and certifying examination –making this article even more important for anyone interested in learning or training in PHM to read.
While the decision to move forward with PHM as a subspecialty has been decided, we still welcome your comments as well (pro or con) that can help those shaping the certification process for this specialty be even more attentive to any challenges that might arise now that PHM has been officially recognized going forward. Share with us your thoughts about the official recommendation by the ABP and ABMS of approving PHM through this blog, post a comment with the published article on our website or simply provide a thought through our Facebook or Twitter websites.
