Hospitalist

Phone: 863-680-7000

Bartow Regional Medical Center
Lakeland Regional Health Medical Center

Unlike traditional Watson Clinic doctors with an outpatient office, hospitalists don’t counsel or treat patients away from the hospital. In fact, the hospitalist’s sole responsibility is to care for hospitalized patients, from admission to discharge – hence the name.

Watson Clinic hospitalists order appropriate diagnostic tests, monitor their patients’ conditions, make treatment decisions with input from primary care doctors and coordinate patient care among all members of the hospital staff. They are especially skilled at treating health problems common among hospitalized patients, such as pneumonia, infections, heart attacks and congestive heart failure.

Because they are hospital-based, hospitalists generally can respond quickly whenever a patient or family member has a question or concern, and they are more likely to be readily available to patients in case of an emergency. Hospitalists can recognize and react quickly to any changes in their patient’s condition, which helps to reduce any chance of medical error or complication, may shorten the patient’s length of stay, and improves the overall quality of patient care.

In addition to our board-certified hospitalists, Watson Clinic employs a variety of additional physicians who only practice from a hospital setting, including a roster of critical care specialists, an orthopaedic trauma surgeon and a team of expert anesthesiologists.