Creating New Specialties
Are we just creating new names for specialties on a whim now? I have never heard of a nocturnist before. Wikipedia, you know, the source for anything official, says a nocturnist is “a hospital-based physician who only works overnight. Most nocturnists are trained in internal medicine or family medicine and have experience in hospital medicine.”
So, basically, a hospitalist who cannot see sunlight? Does he bite people and drink their blood too? Isn’t that a Draculist?
Come one. This has to be a joke. I can make up names too. Heck, this could be fun:
- Candiasist – a physician who only sees patients with yeast.
- Gloomist – a physician who only sees sad patients.
- Repugnist – a physician who only sees ugly patients.
- Phallist – a physician who only sees politicians.
- Pannist – a physician who only sees fat people.
Now it is your turn. Send in some ideas for names of new specialties. Be creative and share your humor!
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Remunerist. Practice limited to those who pay well
A Press-ganeyist – a physician who makes all his/her decisions based on the main goal of increasing patient satisfaction scores.
I was hoping the nocturnist could just sleep all night in the call room while the ER and a hospitalist handle things.
Doug, Where the hell have you been? The administrator at our rural hospital wants to banish us to the clinic and hire nocturnists!! I heard that term 2 years ago. We’ve resisted though if I was bribed with $250k to see 12 patients a day, work 8:30 to 5:00, no-call, no-weekends, no hassles,
I’d whore myself ’cause it would be a helluva lot more I’m making now coming in 7 days a week to
“tickle” the EHR and “sweetening” the records. Plus I’m one of the older guys looking to get out
in 4 years or so.
Then I’ll sit back, relax and laugh at the demise of family practice as a viable specialty.
Hey Dr. Doug,
How about a Fibroist or a Fatiguist? Or since they frequently coexist, a Fibrofatiguist!!
Seriously though…..We have several diabetologists and lipidologists (most of whom are not doctors)
First, the concept of the nocturnist came after the hospitalist. They found that non academic centers had no on site doctors at night. The risks of complications jumps at night. One hospital said that one accreditation group (Not sure JCAHO) was going to require it as evidence of quality. There are billing issues. If the hospitalist or PCP sees the patient during the day, who gets paid for seeing the patient at night? No two billings on the same day.
Humorist – physician who treats sick humor
Analist-a physician who sees only (fill in the blank).
the anal retentive
Don’t forget Dr. Tobias Funke of the show “Arrested Development”. He was a psychiatrist who was both an analyst and therapist, so his business card listed his specialty as an “analrapist”
Favorist – A physician who only sees the friends and relatives of his friends and business associates for free.
Masochist-anyone physician who continues to work under present day conditions