Clinical Component

The Practice, Schedule, and Responsibilities

The Critical Care Unit (CCU) is a special department within the hospital that provides intensive treatment medicine. The CCU caters to patients with severe and life-threatening illnesses and injuries, which require constant, close monitoring and support from specialized equipment and medications.
The unit is staffed by doctors and nurses who have special training and certifications to provide care for critically ill patients. 
The schedule is flexible, but generally will be Monday – Friday, essentially 36 hours of patient contact per week. Right now, Dr. Mejia currently splits his time between the clinic and rounding at the hospital.
Dr. Mejia is currently seeing up to 30 patients in clinic days. He shared that the ALOS in the CCU is 3-4 days and the average daily census is 12. With the current three (3) months wait time, you’ll be walking into a turnkey situation.

Please note, that this schedule will change once the incoming physician is on board. The team at Morristown-Hamblen is incredibly flexible.

Call

The incoming PUD/CC will be expected to take 10 days of call per month. If you want to focus on Outpatient only Pulmonology, CALL is not required.
According to Dr. Mejia, the call is not daunting. He may have Zero calls one night and 5 the next and rarely comes in. The weekends tend to have a little higher volume. The hospitalist team and Dr. Mejia have a great relationship. They do not bother calling him unless they really need him. Typically, Dr. Mejia gets an update from the night before and will follow up with the patient that day.

Sleep Lab

Currently, there are 4 Sleep Labs at the hospital, but the Sleep Lab at Morristown Hamblen is currently closed. However, if a physician has a desire to do sleep in his or her practice then that would be great. The team at Morristown believes that a new Pulmonologist with interest in Sleep will help reengage the program since there is a need for that as well.