Placement: A Hospitalist’s Perspective

"I know we just met, but have you picked a place yet?"

By Hospitalist Dr. Eric O’Malley

Placement. I like placement. I like nursing home placement. I like rehab placement. I like acute rehab placement. I like subacute rehab placement. I like LTAC placement. So many placements. I like them all.

hospitalist I like placing men. I like placing women. I like placing old people. I like placing young people. I like placing people who are neither young nor old. I place all sorts of people and I like that. I like placements that I can do on my own. I like placements that require help from social workers. PT and OT are my friends; they find me patients who need placement.

Some placements are easy. Some placements are hard. Some placements take forever, especially if you need to get guardianship. That’s okay because it’s still placement. And I like placement. I’m okay with inpatient hospice, that’s kinda like placement. But not home hospice. That’s not placement. Neither is home health. You can’t fool me. I only like placement.

Orthopedic surgeons like bones. Cardiologists like hearts. Nephrologists like kidneys. Hospitalists like placement. Those other guys are missing out.

If you ask me to admit a patient, I will ask if the patient needs placement. If you ask me to take over as primary, I will ask if the patient needs placement. If you ask me to discharge a patient home, I will double check if the patient needs placement. Placement means a discharge summary. I don’t like discharge summaries. But I will do them if it means I can get patients placed. After all, I like placement.

Thanks to four years of undergraduate training, four years of medical school, and three years of internal medicine residency, I can unequivocally say that I have the all the tools at my disposal to place anyone. Place first, treat second, that’s what I always say. Boy, I sure do like placement.