Patient Care

Physicians in the University of Arizona Division of Inpatient Medicine are referred to as hospitalists because that’s where we practice. Adult hospitalists specialize in providing care to complex hospitalized patients age 18 and older. Board certified in internal medicine, we are experts in diagnosing and managing acute medical illnesses that hospitalized patients generally suffer. This often requires coordination with subspecialists and surgeons. The role of a hospitalist begins when a patient is admitted to the hospital and continues for the duration of their hospital stay.

  • Hospitalists are committed to providing the latest evidence-based, safe, high-quality and compassionate care to hospitalized patients.
  • Hospitalists are integral components to a patient’s overall health care plan and allow primary care physicians to focus their attention on their office practice.
  • Hospitalists work collaboratively with patients, their families, nursing, pharmacy, case management and social services—as well as specialty physicians, surgeons and other members of our multidisciplinary team—to discuss the best courses of treatment and to offer optimized care.
  • Hospitalists are available for the patient and family members throughout the day or week—24/7—to answer questions and concerns.
  • Hospitalists help plan and coordinate the patient's discharge to home or another facility.
  • Hospitalists remain in close contact with primary care physicians and inform them about all key events during patient’s hospitalization.
  • Hospitalists communicate with each other for consistency and continuity of care.
  • Hospitalist work with hospital management to improve patient care quality system.

Our physicians are dedicated to providing high-quality, cost-effective, efficient care while respecting the wishes and desires of the patient. We strongly believe transitioning back to the primary care doctors is as important as taking care of our patients in the hospital. Thus, we communicate the hospital treatment course with the primary care physician during the hospitalization and at the time of discharge.

Clinical Services

The Division of Inpatient Medicine provides many clinical services to patients at the Banner – University Medical Center (UMC) Tucson and Banner – UMC South campus hospitals.

Highlights include:

  • Medicine Teaching Teams – Hospitalists serve as attending physicians on these teams providing teaching to residents and students. Patients might see a large team of health care professionals led by a hospitalist.
  • Hospitalists Non-Teaching Teams – Hospitalists work by themselves and with our excellent nursing staff in providing patient care.
  • Hospital Liaison Service – We provide a liaison service for peripheral and outlying hospitals to assist them in safe transfer of sick patients to our facility in order to provide a higher level of care.

Acute Care Hospitalist Medical Service

We do admit for certain subspecialty services—such as oncology, cardiology, neurosurgery, ophthalmology, orthopedics, otolaryngology, urology, etc.—working closely and collaboratively with those subspecialties as part of the co-management teams in acute care settings. Patients are cared for directly by the hospitalists and our nursing staff. We work with a multidisciplinary team of care providers to practice safe medicine and maintain high-quality care that coordinates closely with the patient’s primary care physician.

Medical Consultative Service

In this 24-hour, 7-days-a-week service, hospitalists provide consultative and co-management care. We work together with surgical and medical subspecialty services to manage acute medical conditions, to perform preoperative evaluations and to prevent and treat postoperative complications.

Nocturnist Service

This service allows us to provide around-the-clock in-house attending physician coverage that supports our acute care hospitalist medical and consultative services. We provide a supporting role for on-call residents to admit patients under inpatient or observation unit care throughout the night and offer cross-coverage for the admitted patients in all wards.

Inpatient Medicine Ward Service

Our hospitalists work with residents and medical students on general medical ward teaching services. We perform and teach bedside procedures such as thoracentesis, paracentesis, lumbar puncture, skin biopsies and arthrocentesis. We currently staff approximately a third of the inpatient teaching services.

Improving Clinical Care Quality

We work closely with Banner – UMC hospital administration and the UA Health Sciences colleges (medicine, pharmacy, nursing and public health) to assist with quality improvement projects. Most of our hospitalists are active on hospital committees for various quality improvement efforts. We advocate and lead initiatives in quality improvements and evidence-based medicine. We are dedicated to market-leading hospital services in terms of excellent patient care, safety, value and satisfaction.

Additional Programs

You can find additional information and detail about programs and services we offer at these links to the Banner – UMC website:

Internal Medicine 

To learn about other programs and services through the UA Department of Medicine, also see:

Where We Practice

The primary facilities where our physicians practice, as well as train and teach, are:

Banner – University Medical Center Tucson 
1501 N Campbell Ave, Tucson, AZ 85724
(520) 694-6000

Banner – University Medical Center South 
2800 E. Ajo Way, Tucson, AZ 85714
(520) 874-2000

For additional information, see the Accolades & Awards webpage for the Banner – UMC Tucson and South hospitals.

Participate in a Clinical Trial

For additional information, see: