title: Hospitalist career decisions among internal medicine residents.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Hospital medicine is a rapidly growing field of internal medicine. However, little is known about internal medicine residents' decisions to pursue careers in hospital medicine (HM).
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To identify which internal medicine residents choose a career in HM, and describe changes in this career choice over the course of their residency education.
  
  
  METHODS
  Observational cohort using data collected from the annual Internal Medicine In-Training Examination (IM-ITE) survey.
  
  
  METHODS
  16,781 postgraduate year 3 (PGY-3) North American internal medicine residents who completed the annual IM-ITE survey in 2009-2011, 9,501 of whom completed the survey in all 3 years of residency.
  
  
  METHODS
  Self-reported career plans for individual residents during their postgraduate year 1 (PGY-1), postgraduate year 2 (PGY-2) and PGY-3.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the 16,781 graduating PGY-3 residents, 1,552 (9.3 %) reported HM as their ultimate career choice. Of the 951 PGY-3 residents planning a HM career among the 9,501 residents responding in all 3 years, 128 (13.5 %) originally made this decision in PGY-1, 192 (20.2 %) in PGY-2, and 631 (66.4 %) in PGY-3. Only 87 (9.1 %) of these 951 residents maintained a career decision of HM during all three years of residency education.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Hospital medicine is a reported career choice for an important proportion of graduating internal medicine residents. However, the majority of residents do not finalize this decision until their final year.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA.
authors.forename: John T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Ratelle
authors.forename: Denise M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Dupras
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Alguire
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Masters
authors.forename: Arlene
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Weissman
authors.forename: Colin P
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: West
mesh_terms: D002321:Career Choice; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D020445:Hospitalists / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine / Q000193:education*; D007396:Internship and Residency / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires