Laborist to Obstetrician/Gynecologist-Hospitalist: An Evolution or a Revolution?

The laborist model offers the best approach to standardize care and improve patient safety on the labor unit, improve physician well-being, and decrease physician dissatisfaction/burnout. The concept of the laborist was based on the hospitalist model. The laborist is free of the stresses of a private practice, works a constant and controllable schedule, and can have work shift limitations, thereby eliminating the issue of fatigue and impairment, and improving patient safety while decreasing the potential for adverse outcomes that may result in a liability action. This is what is being demanded both by patients and generation Y physicians.