About Us

In 2009, Central Maine Hospitalists (CMH), in collaboration with Central Maine Family Medicine Residency(CMFMR), began offering a one year fellowship for a family medicine graduate interested in pursuing a career as a hospitalist.  Based on our highly successful initial experience with this program, we are pleased to continue to offer this opportunity and hope you will contact us if you are interested in focusing your career on inpatient medicine.

CMH was established with five experienced physicians in 2004 and has now grown to ten board-certified hospitalist physicians and three physician assistants. We care for over 40% of the inpatient population at Central Maine Medical Center (CMMC), a 250 bed teaching, community hospital.  Because of the strength of our group and overall satisfaction with our practice we have enjoyed the uncommon experience of one hundred percent physician retention since the inception of the group. All members of CMH are actively involved in a multitude of hospital processes - leadership, quality, guideline development and implementation, patient safety, medical education, palliative care, and information technology. We are also involved in the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM), including Fellows of Hospital Medicine and SHM national task force membership.  All members of the group are committed teachers involved throughout the year in educating the hospitalist fellow, residents, medical and pharmacy students. 

CMFMR has been educating family physicians since 1978, having trained over 140 graduates. We provide care and training to diverse populations and our graduates are regularly hired into the hospital system. The opportunity to partner with the hospitalist group builds on our reputation for excellent inpatient training and our flexibility in establishing programs to meet student and resident needs. The family medicine clinic has established a reputation for advanced thinking in organizing for the provision of care and has become a research setting for the rest of the outpatient practices at CMMC.

Modeling excellence in interdepartmental cooperation, CMH and CMFMR are exceptionally well-suited to educating family medicine hospitalists. 

Background

The field of hospital medicine is now well-established and continues to grow, with demand for hospitalists far out-weighing supply.  However, less than four percent of U.S. hospitalists are family medicine graduates, with the vast majority being BC/BE in internal medicine.  In fact, there are many hospitalist positions that limit their recruitment to internal medicine graduates.¹

With the additional, concentrated inpatient training this fellowship provides our graduate will be well-prepared to effectively practice hospital medicine in a variety of hospital settings. Enhanced skills and experience will allow the fellow to command more interest from hospital programs unaware of the potential for excellent hospital care by family medicine trained hospitalists.