When Mel Anderson, MD, MACP, SFHM, received his bachelor’s degree in philosophy in 1990, he never foresaw that he’d one day become a national leader of hospital medicine, a booming medical specialty where clinicians focus on caring for hospitalized patients.
His career trajectory has had many turns, from an unexpected conversation that made him rediscover his dream of becoming a doctor, to getting accepted into a training program at a United States Air Force medical center, to discovering a love for teaching, and going from a lone hospitalist to a national director. Despite these unforeseen twists, there has been one principle that has remained steadfast throughout Anderson’s career: his passion for helping others.
Driven by this purpose, Anderson has become a leader at a local and national level. His titles include: professor of hospital medicine in the University of Colorado Department of Medicine, the former section chief of hospital medicine at the Rocky Mountain Regional Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and the national program executive director of Veterans Health Administration hospital medicine.
And now, Anderson has another item to add to his long list of achievements — becoming one of 21 clinicians inducted into the inaugural cohort of the CU Department of Medicine’s Clinical Excellence Society. The society recognizes the best clinical care providers in the department.
Anderson’s induction is further proof of his reputation as a trusted and admired clinician by patients and their loved ones. For instance, the wife of a former patient wrote in a note to Anderson: “Your wisdom, knowledge, and kindness at the worst time in our lives will never be forgotten … Thank you again for the opportunity to get to know you and feel the warmth of your soul.”
Such admiration is shared by fellow clinicians. Adrienne Mann, MD, a CU associate professor of hospital medicine, worked with Anderson when she was a medical student, resident, and now as a colleague. In a letter recommending Anderson be inducted into the clinical excellence society, Mann described Anderson as “a magnet that brings out the very best and highest in people.”
“He has nurtured and inspired countless young doctors in their development into clinicians who value empathy, communication, professionalism, and integrity, as well as diagnostic acumen and skill,” Mann wrote. “He inspires all of us to be thoughtful and diligent as we strive to become expert clinicians ourselves.”
Rediscovering a childhood dream
As a child, Anderson wanted to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather and become a doctor. It continued to be his goal as he went through his K-12 schooling and began college at Trinity University in Texas, joining the university’s pre-medical program. But a bad experience in one of his science classes — and a good experience in a philosophy class — changed all that, and he switched his path to become a philosophy major. He thought his childhood dream of becoming a physician “just wasn’t in the cards,” he says, though he was unsure what he would ultimately do with a philosophy degree.
Then, everything changed once more during a visit home from college. After receiving encouragement to apply to medical school from a family friend who had been on the admissions committee for the Baylor College of Medicine, Anderson decided to pursue medicine once again. Having already almost completed his philosophy degree, Anderson began taking prerequisite courses over the summer and during his senior year so he could apply for medical school.
His hard work paid off, as he was accepted into medical school with his philosophy degree in 1990. He joined the University of Texas Health Science Center, where over the next four years, he would discover a passion for internal medicine and teaching.
“I discovered I was a teacher when, between my first and second years of medical school, I got a job to be a preceptor for a pre-entry program where we helped teach roughly 30 students,” he says. “It was transformative. I loved it, and so then I pursued every teaching opportunity I could. It is both my curiosity as a clinician and curiosity as an educator that has really carried me forward in my career.”
Becoming a hospitalist
Anderson received a scholarship for medical school through the U.S. armed forces and went on to join an internal medicine residency training program at the David Grant U.S. Air Force Medical Center in 1994. As one of six interns, Anderson received “unbelievably good training,” he says, and he was named chief resident from 1997-98. He also met his future wife, who was one of the other five residents in his cohort.
After completing residency, Anderson joined the faculty at the David Grant U.S. Air Force Medical Center for several years. Between 1994 and 2000, Anderson was a captain in the U.S. Air Force Medical Corps, and he became a major in 2000. At that point, he and his wife had a 6-month-old daughter, and they decided to leave the Air Force after their commitment period ended.
In June of 2001, Anderson and his family decided to move to Providence, Rhode Island, where his wife began a fellowship program in cardiology and electrophysiology, and Anderson became a primary care physician at the Providence VA Medical Center. During his second year at the VA, he was promoted to interim chief of primary care. Despite the promotion, something prompted him to call the chief of medicine and ask if he could do a month of inpatient attending, where he would care for patients staying in the hospital.
“Within about a week, I said to myself, ‘I think this is what I’m supposed to be doing,’” Anderson says. “I switched to doing full-time hospital medicine in 2004, and I’ve done hospital medicine ever since.”
After Anderson’s wife completed her four-year fellowship, the pair decided to move with their daughter to Colorado, drawn by the mountains and the CU Anschutz Medical Campus’ impressive reputation.
“It's been one of the best decisions we made,” he says. “We raised a daughter here, we’ve made careers here, and it’s been incredibly enriching, challenging, and wonderful. I have so much to be thankful for.”
From a team of one to a national leader
Throughout his career, Anderson has seen — and contributed to — the evolution of hospital medicine from a small to booming medical specialty.
He hadn’t even heard the term “hospitalist” until his chief resident year in 1997. When Anderson joined the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center in 2005, he was the only hospitalist. Since then, there has been a growth in hospital medicine as a medical specialty, and there are now nearly 25 hospitalists at the center, he explains.
One of Anderson’s proudest accomplishments throughout his career is helping create this group of accomplished hospitalists at the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center.
“Growing this group, person by person, very deliberately over time, and having them care for one another and seeing how amazing they are with patients and trainees — I feel such gratitude,” he says. “I’ve witnessed an unbelievable group of colleagues who have flourished here. It has been one of the joys of my life.”
Wanting to further advance the quality of care being delivered to VA patients on a national scale, Anderson joined the VHA Hospitalist Field Advisory Committee in 2012. This committee was essentially a “think tank” of about six hospitals across the country that volunteered to address questions and issues that came up in the VHA, he explains.
In 2017, Anderson became the chair of the committee, and after two years, he felt there was a need for hospital medicine to have its own official program — similar to what other specialties, such as cardiology, had. Through advocacy and collaboration with other leaders, his efforts succeeded, and the first VHA hospital medicine program was formed, with Anderson becoming the national program director.
Over the years, Anderson says he has “invested heavily in creating a national community of practice.” Today, the program has a network of consultants spread across the country who meet monthly to discuss ways to improve patient care.
“We’re all connected. If I have a problem, I will ask this group first because, most of the time, other folks have wrestled with the same issue and developed solutions,” he says. “It keeps the entire community updated, and now we have a lot of momentum in improving the quality and safety of patient care at VA medical centers across the country.”
Prioritizing trust
The majority of the patients Anderson sees are men with prior service in the military who have elected to get their health care through the VA, “which largely corresponds to those who are disadvantaged socioeconomically,” he says.
“This is a largely underserved patient population, as they have a high prevalence of mental health disorders, alcohol use disorder, homelessness, and post-traumatic stress disorder,” he says. “But practically every day, as we finish caring for a patient, tears of gratitude and appreciation will come to their eyes for what our team has given them. It is one of the greatest rewards I could hope for.”
A key lesson Anderson has learned is the value of trust between clinicians and patients. This became evident to him when he was assigned to care for a man with progressive dementia that was worsening. Anderson was told by other clinicians that there was conflict because the patient’s son did not want to acknowledge that his dad’s condition would not improve.
“On the first day that I was responsible for the patient’s care, I met with his son and said, ‘I care very much about doing the right thing for your dad, but I worry somehow that we’ve lost your trust,’” Anderson says. “And he said, ‘You’re right.’ It was terrible to hear, but I also felt a jolt of hope because he was being honest with me.
“I apologized to him, expressed gratitude for him telling me that, and told him, ‘My goal is to try to re-earn your trust so that we can do the right things for your dad.’ I kept meeting with him, and we were able to re-establish a trusting relationship and talk about his dad’s worsening condition and ways to reduce his suffering,” he adds. “Since then, I’ve studied and become a student of trust in health care relationships.”
Based on his research and experience, the qualities that make a clinician trustworthy include authenticity, empathy, accountability, and humility.
“We have to own our mistakes. It’s important to understand what it means to be a lifelong learner and to embrace fallibility as a route toward mastery,” he says. “I’m still learning every day, and I encourage others to embrace their imperfections and find ways to generate feedback from others so they can continue to grow.
“I strive to be a master bedside clinician, an attuned observer, a master bedside physical diagnostician, and someone who my patients and trainees can trust,” he adds. “That’s what clinical excellence means — striving for all those things and to never stop striving.”
Photo at top: CU Department of Medicine Chair Vineet Chopra, MBBS, MD, MSc (left) and John Carethers, MD, vice chancellor for health sciences at the University of California, San Diego (right) smile as Mel Anderson, MD, MACP, SFHM, was inducted into the department's clinical excellence society.
