Pediatric hospital medicine (PHM) is experiencing structural shifts that may affect the composition and sustainability of its clinical workforce. Notable contextual changes include the discontinuation of the practice pathway to board certification and changes in pediatric residency training that reduce inpatient exposure. In this environment, the authors sought to describe the current scope of pediatric hospital medicine practice, how hospitalists split clinical and nonclinical responsibilities, factors associated with variation in roles, and indicators of workforce sustainability.
The authors conducted a cross-sectional survey adapted from the 2021 PHM workforce survey. The instrument was distributed from July through September 2024. Individual email addresses used for distribution were obtained from societal lists and a separate list of division or group leaders. Eligibility criteria included identifying as a physician or advanced practice provider currently practicing PHM; trainees were explicitly excluded. The abstract does not provide the full survey instrument, question wording, or detailed sampling frame beyond the listed sources for emails.
The survey was sent to 2,932 individuals; 1,060 responded, yielding a response rate of 36.2%. Respondents represented all US geographic regions and a variety of employment models. Most respondents worked full time (88.6%) and nearly all (99.6%) provided direct patient care. The abstract does not provide a detailed breakdown of age, years in practice, or precise distributions across employment model categories in the full sample.
Nonclinical activities were common among respondents. Teaching was reported by 92.9% of participants. Research and scholarship participation was reported by 62.3%, and administrative roles by 53.6%. The abstract emphasizes that engagement in these nonclinical domains varied according to several factors, specifically employment model, academic appointment, board status, gender, and career stage. Exact magnitudes of these subgroup differences, statistical analyses, and adjusted associations are not detailed in the abstract.
A substantial portion of respondents indicated intentions to reduce certain clinical duties: 43.8% planned to decrease overall clinical time, and 36.5% planned to decrease night or evening shifts. These findings suggest shifting preferences for work–life balance or career focus among practicing PHM clinicians. The abstract does not report timelines for these planned reductions or how intentions differed across subgroups.
The authors conclude that PHM is characterized by broad professional engagement across both clinical and nonclinical domains. However, nonclinical responsibilities and perceptions of sustainability are variable across the workforce. Given evolving certification and training structures, the authors highlight the importance of continued workforce planning and monitoring to support the PHM workforce as roles and expectations change.
Key implications drawn from the survey results include the need to recognize and accommodate the high prevalence of nonclinical work among hospitalists—particularly teaching, scholarship, and administrative duties—when designing job structures, compensation models, and staffing plans. The reported intentions by many respondents to reduce clinical time or evening/night coverage indicate potential future pressures on clinical staffing and scheduling. As certification pathways and residency training exposure change, organizations and professional societies may need to track workforce composition, role distribution, and retention indicators to maintain sustainable inpatient pediatric care models.
The abstract does not report several elements that readers may wish to know from the full study, including the full survey instrument, detailed demographic breakdowns, statistical methods and measures of association for subgroup differences, timelines or reasons for planned clinical reductions, geographic or institutional stratified results, and explicit study limitations. Those details were not provided in the abstract and would require consultation of the full article for comprehensive appraisal.