House physicians. Accountabilities and possibilities.

Current house physicians' practice, responsibilities, and earnings are reviewed. House physicians are licensed, ordinarily institutionally based, typically salaried physician employees of 1 or more hospitals or systems. Many are hourly workers, often foreign medical graduates or physicians in training, with little professional status and less visibility. Yet managed care sees a new, creative role for house physicians that makes them masters of quality and models of service. No longer dependent beings shielded by an institution's coverage, house physicians can emerge as efficient, educated champions of inpatient medicine. To produce hospital generalist physicians for the patient's good, physician availability, institutional financial incentives, and patient values must align.