He loves his work. Jonathan Fliegel, MD, professor in the Division of Hospital Medicine and Complex Care, has been a member of the Department of Pediatrics since 2008. He came on as the inaugural chief of that nascent division through 2013, after he had served the previous 14 years at the University of Michigan, in part also working in hospital medicine.
Fliegel’s interests and expertise throughout his career have been in the clinical care of hospitalized patients and in all levels of medical education. His primary focus has been effective clinical medical education — teaching medical students, teaching future medical educators, helping others learn what it takes to be astute and effective thinkers and communicators — all the while understanding and conveying the essentials of evidence-based medicine. Fliegel has loved every day of his job. But there are many other things he would like to explore and learn, so after a gratifying medical career of more than 30 years, he will step into retirement in October.
A native of Madison, Wisconsin — indeed, Fliegel is as true a Madisonian as anyone can claim, he was born on the same floor of the old Wisconsin General Hospital on University Avenue where many years later he spent time working toward his medical degree. He earned his BS in biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and his MD at the then University of Wisconsin School of Medicine in 1989.
Fliegel’s early love of science, a deep affection for children, and family members in medicine — both father and sister — gently nudged him toward medicine and pediatrics as a specialty. “I always loved science, and my interest in children came from growing up in a very large family: there were eight of us Fliegels and then five Brewsters that joined into the larger plan when I was 12,” Fliegel explained. “I’ve always been invested in emulating or respecting or generally being interested in children. Pediatrics came out of that. I knew through all the rotations in medical school that pediatrics was for me.”
It was not only the work with children that attracted him. “I wanted to go into pediatrics because I love that triad — patient-doctor-family — of helping raise a child,” he said, “and to some extent helping raise the parent. I found early on that I enjoyed that patient-doctor-family dynamic, both in inpatient and outpatient settings.”
His current specialty of hospital medicine within pediatrics did not even exist when Fliegel began practicing. Outpatient doctors would see their patients in the hospital, as the classic doctors of long ago. “The term hospitalist, which is a kind of made-up word, didn’t even exist until 1996!” Fliegel recounted. “So I only entered hospital medicine in 1999 and am very happy that I discovered the specialty and then was able to grow with it and contribute to the foundations of it as a specialty.” Fliegel was one of an engaged group developing the field of Hospital Medicine that met and wrote the CME materials for the certification exam for the specialty.
Fliegel also embraced the role of medical educator and became an exemplary teacher, honored with a very long list of awards and accolades. In addition, he served as director of the UW Health Pediatric Diagnostic and Consultation Clinic; and in 2021, he helped launch the Pediatric Hospital Medicine Fellowship, serving as its associate program director. Beyond the local realm, Fliegel’s prodigious clinical and educational skills garnered him the role of editor of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) PREP Hospital Medicine: Pediatrics Review and Education Program, from 2012 to 2023, and emeritus editor through 2024.
Ryan Coller, MD, MPH, associate professor and current chief of the Division of Hospital Medicine and Complex Care, offered an enthusiastic encomium on the occasion of Fliegel’s retirement from the department. Below are excerpts from that tribute:
After 17 years of tireless dedication, countless calls, and an uncanny ability to soothe anxious parents, toddlers, and trainees (often simultaneously), Dr. Fliegel has decided to hang up the stethoscope and embrace retirement.
Throughout his career, Dr. Fliegel has been a pillar of our Hospital Medicine and Complex Care Division, and in fact, the entire field. A legendary educator of many, Dr. Fliegel ran the gauntlet of perennial award wins – the Todd Varness Outstanding Clinical Teaching Award, the Ellen Wald Intellectual Curiosity Award, the Allen Inspiring Children Lectureship, the UW Health Physician Excellence Clinician Educator Award, and too numerous to count Medical Student, Pediatric Residency, and Family Medicine Residency Program Teaching awards.
As we all know, Jon has mastered the art of diagnosing from across the room both clinical conditions and trainee needs, and his absence will be felt by everyone … but we’re thrilled for what lies ahead for him and [his wife] Tammy.
Five Questions for Jonathan Fliegel, MD
How has your career surprised you, compared to how you had expected it to develop when you began?
I didn’t plan on this. I stepped into hospital medicine in Michigan because I needed a clinical job to go along with the clerkship director position I was in. That hospitalist job opened up and there weren’t any outpatient jobs in the academic world there at the moment. There was an opportunity, and I didn’t know what I was going to do with it.
One lesson I’ve always told people is that you don’t know what’s going to happen, and there’s always flexibility in terms of what you can do in medicine and in pediatrics — and even now within a specialty of pediatrics. There’s a range of things you can choose from and edge toward.
What has really surprised me is that I’ve had the opportunities I’ve had and seen the whole field grow — and I never knew that it would be an option. I also had no idea that I had such a strong interest in medical education. NO idea. But that became evident.
What do you consider to be your biggest achievement?
Achievement-wise, professionally, I guess it is that I became a pioneer — did I really just use that word? — in this field. I was able to be a foundational hospitalist at Michigan and to help set the foundation for our group as well, which has now grown beyond anything I could have imagined with all the things that people have done.
The other achievement I am most proud of is my long-term relationship with PREP Hospital Medicine. I met fantastic people from around the country, and we created a really neat education program. I learned more than I taught. It became a helpful educational piece for all of us hospitalists, especially when many of us were taking their pediatric boards five or six years ago in order to obtain our specialty certification.
What has been your largest obstacle to overcome?
So many avenues, so many directions, and then getting diverted. And, for me, the completion of things, the longer-term projects. So — my obstacle has been so many choices with all of them being lovely. You can’t do everything!
What advice would you offer to new physicians just starting out?
Be open to possibilities: you never know where a path will lead. Follow it and see what happens.
If you’re lucky enough to be able to, yes, follow your bliss.
One core concept in my career was something I gained from a gentleman named Joel Alpert, who at the time was the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He said this was the core of mission statement: “Care. Care about what you do. Care about who you’re taking care of. Care about whatever projects you’re doing. Just care.”
If you just care, you may realize what a privilege it is to take care of people who aren’t well, particularly children and their families. It’s unique and wonderful.
Put your patient first. It’s not about you.
Do you have specific plans for your retirement?
I am hoping to reengage with things that I’ve laid aside or haven’t invested enough time in, as much as I’d like to. And I’d like to learn new things. That’s a big piece of it. Spend even more time with my wife, walking, and going to national parks. And also, music will be a big part of my retirement. I’ve been taking voice lessons and hope to participate more with choirs and musicals. I have a great deal of fun with that.