Conference Coverage
What works, what doesn't for diagnosing meningitis, encephalitis
An expert at IDWeek offered advice on managing viral, bacterial, and autoimmune infections—including how to tell them apart.
Improving palliative care in cirrhosis
Educating patients and acknowledging their existential distress are just two ways hospitalists can better meet the needs of patients with decompensated cirrhosis.
Sending HM to the stars
Eric Howell, MD, expects hospital medicine (HM) to keep growing and improving care amid challenges including burnout and private equity.
Mythbusting COPD exacerbations
A pulmonologist offered her do's and don'ts for treating chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Med rec for hospitalists and hospitals
An expert explains how to do a good medication reconciliation for a single patient, and how to improve them throughout a whole system.
The latest on inpatient glucose control
A diabetes expert explains where glycemic targets should be now and what may be coming next, including continuous glucose monitors.
Is your patient depressed or just demoralized?
Demoralization is common among inpatients and can be treated with relatively simple interventions, according to a psychiatrist.
Rinsing out the SOAP
Two hospitalists debate the value of the Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan note format.
Outsmarting MRSA
An infectious diseases specialist offers advice on drugs and strategies to combat methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
Sepsis and other inpatient emergencies
An intensivist offered hot tips for hospitalists during a precourse at Internal Medicine Meeting 2024.
Malaria, dengue, and traditionally tropical threats
Clinicians far outside the tropics should now keep an eye out for diseases that used to be limited to tropical areas, an expert advises.
Where's your niche?
Academic hospitalists explain how to build a fulfilling career by focusing on a small, specific area of education or research.
Climbing to the C-suite
Hospital executives offered hard-won tips on mentorship, networking, interviewing, and negotiating at CONVERGE 2024.
The many faces of hospital medicine
International hospitalists share their common and unique experiences and challenges.
Catching postop problems
An expert offers tips on dealing with postoperative fever, urinary retention, nausea and vomiting, acute kidney injury, and atrial fibrillation.
Buprenorphine, cannabis, and other periop challenges
Perioperative medication management is particularly tricky when it comes to patients who are already taking drugs for chronic pain.
Paying for hospital care at home
Traditional hospital-at-home models include costs for care, medications, and labs but do not cover the capital expenses that diagnosis-related group payments typically support.
Catheters and other plumbing problems
A urologist offered his tips for hospitalists on catheter placement and additional urological issues in a recent lecture.
The reality of postacute care
Skilled nursing facilities and home health care can help patients continue recovering after discharge, but hospitalists, patients, and caregivers must understand their limitations.
Continuing aspirin for no reason?
A speaker made the case for anticoagulant monotherapy in selected patients with stable coronary artery disease and atrial fibrillation during a “Things We Do For No Reason” session at SHM Converge 2022.
The road ahead for hospital medicine
During his plenary at SHM Converge 2022, Robert M. Wachter, MD, MACP, shared his thoughts on the future of hospital medicine, including changes in patient complexity and hospital finance, the catch-22 of hospital at home, and the potential impacts of technology.
Tips on LGBTQ terminology
An expert explained how to foster patients' trust by talking about their gender identity and sexual orientation with the currently preferred wording.
Lights, camera, medicine
Patient requests to record hospital care on video are likely to be increasingly common, and hospitalists should prepare by learning the relevant rules and appropriate responses.
Why perioperative anaphylaxis is like paella
An expert speaker at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology 2022 Annual Meeting drew parallels between perioperative anaphylaxis and the Spanish dish, reviewing differential diagnoses, causal agents, and useful labs.
Combating clots in COVID-19
Critical care experts advised on appropriate prophylaxis for ward and ICU patients as part of the CHEST 2021 conference.
Secrets of the great attendings
Great teaching physicians share some habits, according to Sanjay Saint, MD, MPH, MACP.
Responding to patients' strong emotions
Physicians are skilled at providing medical information but sometimes hesitate to address the emotion that might arise as a result.
More school? An MBA debate
Two hospitalist leaders discuss the pros and cons of getting a business degree.
Mind your Ps when talking to your C-suite
Hospitalists can optimize their discussions with executives by focusing on three steps: prepare, propose, and proceed.
How and why to prognosticate
Hospitalists should try to help patients understand the prognosis of their illnesses.
Counting lives saved
Commonly used tallies of medical errors may dramatically overestimate their toll.
12 tips for new academic hospitalists
Bradley Sharpe, MD, shared some of the actions that set him up for success.
A look back at an intense year in intensive care
Three experts analyze the pandemic response.
Avoiding, or treating, AKI in cirrhosis
Catch acute kidney injury early in this high-risk population.
An updated approach to acute colonic pseudo-obstruction
An expert offers advice on recognizing the condition and avoiding serious consequences.
Tailor treatment for asymptomatic inpatient hypertension
An expert warns hospitalists against overprescribing.
How to withdraw ventilation compassionately
An expert offers advice on tackling the psychological and medical challenges of end-of-life extubation.
Pandemic parenting as a physician
Two hospitalists address the challenges of being a doctor and parent.
COVID-19 prompts consideration of pre-ICU care
An expert calls for solutions to delays and boarding.
Tackling patient flow during COVID-19
An expert offers six tips to achieve early discharges.
Inpatient insulin: Secrets to smoother switches
Irl B. Hirsch, MD, MACP, offers tips for moving patients to formulary options.
Data but few answers on vasopressors
An expert reviews the evidence on mean arterial pressure targets and various vasopressors.
Pay attention and pop into action when postop MI occurs
An expert offers advice on STEMI and NSTEMI after surgery.
Safe injection site aims to curb overdose deaths
Advocates for a plan in Philadelphia make their case.
Document to defeat malpractice suits
An experienced expert witness offers 10 tips for hospitalists.
Be aware before biowarfare strikes
An expert offers an overview of anthrax, tularemia, and plague.
Use a light touch for ICU sedation
Take a stepwise approach to choose sedation and paralysis wisely.
The battle for high-value care
Experts give their advice on value projects and the evidence on stress tests and clot prophylaxis.
Understanding heart failure in African Americans
Disparities may result from biological and environmental factors.
The kidney versus the heart
Thinking has changed on acute kidney injury during heart failure decompensation.
Don't overlook obesity hypoventilation syndrome
The American Thoracic Society recently offered data and a guideline on obesity hypoventilation syndrome.
Challenges in combating COPD readmissions
Experts report on bundled payments and other efforts targeting COPD hospital costs.
New rules for predicting recovery after cardiac arrest
Therapeutic hypothermia has changed the field of neurology after cardiac arrest.
When physicians and patients disagree
Preserve patient autonomy in difficult situations, including requests for futile care and AMA discharges.
Using corticosteroids (or not)
Review the latest data on prescribing these drugs for pneumonia, sepsis, and COPD.
Don't get psyched out!
An internist and psychiatrist offers tips on separating somatization from deception.
Working up inpatient psychosis
Ask the right questions and know the common differentials to speed your diagnosis.
Pinpoint PE in high-risk patients with syncope
The evidence on the prevalence of pulmonary embolism (PE) among patients with syncope has been mixed.
Look out for liver emergencies
Improve your evaluation of acute-on-chronic liver failure and hepatic encephalopathy.
Approach constipation aggressively
An expert speaking at American College of Gastroenterology 2018 gave tips on inpatient constipation.
Talking about distress and prognosis at ASCO
Physician-patient communication needs improvement and attention, according to experts at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual meeting.
Treating acute pain in opioid-experienced patients
Learn best practices for managing acute pain in patients with opioid use disorder, on chronic opioid therapy, and on opioid-agonist therapy.
Tech talks offer a vision of the future
Computer advances, from artificial intelligence to interoperability, will significantly change hospitalist practice, two experts agreed.
Documenting and treating pressure ulcers
A wound care expert reviewed the stages of pressure ulcers (or injuries).
Catch up on new COPD guidelines
A pulmonologist explained updated guidelines and offered tips on optimal care for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Taking the mystery out of falls
Donna M. Miller, MD, ACP Member, offered advice on diagnosing and preventing falls at the Mayo Clinic Hospital Medicine 2017 conference.
Questions and answers in periop medicine
Michael J. Maniaci, MD, ACP Member, reviewed data on cardiac and pulmonary perioperative exams and insulin and aspirin management at the Mayo Clinic Hospital Medicine 2017 conference.
Problems and potential with probiotics
Despite challenges such as FDA regulation of research and uncertainties about potential risks of probiotics, the good bugs are becoming more prevalent in both consumer and health care settings.
Is your antimicrobial stewardship program ready for a survey?
Experts at IDWeek offered some lessons learned during the first year of The Joint Commission's antimicrobial stewardship standard for acute care.
Get the most out of your radiologist
Advice for hospitalists from a radiologist on how to choose the right scan for every patient.
Say no to antipsychotics and bed alarms for older patients
Some well-intentioned but misguided interventions may harm geriatric inpatients more than they help.
The high-value care conversation
With a few tips and tricks, hospitalists can successfully talk to inpatients about high-value care.
Discover and defeat your diagnostic errors
Experts explain the causes and solutions for common mistakes in diagnosis.
Doc, your weight bias is showing
Physician attitudes can lead to avoidance, delays of care
Sepsis still infected with uncertainty
Experts from CHEST 2016 debate screening, fluids, more
What happens up there?
Experts offer advice for physicians requesting air medical transport.
Concussion care, from an NFL expert
ED conference features football players' association medical director.
Duration not always definitive in convulsive status epilepticus
Timelines can help but shouldn't always be followed to the letter.
Public health researchers look at rise in marijuana-related hospitalizations
Age, gender, and other factors predict risk.
What not to do in palliative care
Some things physicians thought they were doing to help patients at the end of life are actually ineffective and even potentially harmful.
Get ready for flu season
Sooner is definitely better when it comes to antivirals for influenza, but later is better than nothing.
Tips on transfusion: Treating reactions and avoiding common errors
Treating reactions and avoiding common errors.
Move fast, but sometimes not too fast, in hypertensive emergencies
Reducing blood pressure in stroke, aortic dissection, and other conditions.
It's hard to be homeless in the hospital
Research and advice from an internist who treats homeless patients.
Know your tests to evaluate rheumatic diseases
Distinguishing crystal disease from infection.
How to launch a bedside procedure service
Hospitalist-led services can increase efficiency and safety.
Improve your CPOE to save time and patients
System settings should be customized to individual needs.
Palliative med conference offers advice on hip fracture, treatment withdrawal, organ donation
News from the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine's annual assembly.
Internal Medicine Meeting 2015 heads to Boston to celebrate 100 years
Special programs, lectures will mark ACP's centennial.
SGLT2 inhibitors change the dynamic of glucose and the kidneys
Kidney Week session discusses new class of diabetes drugs.
Common curbside consults in infectious disease
Most popular questions revealed at UCSF conference.
The current and future state of stroke treatment
Insight from UCSF's Management of the Hospitalized Patient conference.
Tips on TIPS and other cirrhosis treatments
Mayo Clinic internist discusses how to manage liver disease.
Fecal transplant pills and other innovations in C. difficile
A report from IDWeek 2014 covers the latest treatments.
Become capable of capacity assessment
Expert analysis on determining decision-making ability from Mayo Clinic meeting.
Expert offers advice on moving fast and mastering meningitis treatment
Expert advice from the American Academy of Neurology meeting.
Medicare readmission penalties examined
Advice is given on how hospitals and clinicians can avoid the pitfalls of the penalty program, and how policymakers could change it to operate more effectively.
Think outside the ICU, physician leader urges
Sick ICU patients outnumber the people allocated to care for them, notes J. Christopher Farmer, MD, FACP.
The future of advanced cardiac life support
Michael O’Connor, MD, offers his thoughts at the Society of Critical Care Medicine's Annual Congress in January.
Affordable Care Act pressures intensivists
The act's emphasis on cost containment and care efficiency will be felt most acutely in the ICU, speaker predicts.
Take a balanced approach to sodium imbalances
Tips for treating patients on both ends of the sodium spectrum, from hyponatremia to hypernatremia.
The next patient safety target: misdiagnosis
Learn steps hospitalists can take to reduce error in their own practices and within their hospitals.
Sexual health in cancer patients important, often overlooked
Keep in mind the types of dysfunction that are likely in different patients.
Communication skills vital to cancer conversations
Common phrases can sound different through the filter of a cancer diagnosis.
Opioid management, constipation key challenges in cancer pain
Adding methadone to opioids can help with intractable pain.
Surgeons, internists square off over osteomyelitis
Medical and surgical solutions to diagnosis and treatment discussed.
Noninvasive positive-pressure ventilation: Who and when
Best uses include acute hypercarbic respiratory failure in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and acute cardiogenic pulmonary edema.
Obesity can complicate ventilator management
Maintaining upright positioning and adequate positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) are important in managing obese ventilated patients.
What you should know about psychotropics
Expert discusses special considerations for patients with various medical conditions.
Expel common myths about gastroparesis
Updated definition of gastroparesis came out in January.
Satisfying patients—one or many at a time
Simple actions, like knocking before entering and introducing one's self, can go a long way.
Pearls from an ID doc
Expert also discusses Clostridium difficile, transesophageal echocardiography.
Just don't do it
Leonard Feldman, MD, FACP, takes a look at non-evidence-based medicine.
Negotiation: A key skill for women hospitalists
Knowing your value and preparing for an ambush are two key secret weapons.
Teaching to the (blood glucose) test
Diabetes self-management education is cost-efficient and effective but underused, experts say.
Telemedicine for heart failure
Telemedicine could help prevent readmissions, but its value must be confirmed by evidence.
Cardiac biomarkers: easy to use and misuse
Experts offer advice on using cardiac troponin and natriuretic peptides to optimize patient care.
Hospital medicine courses abound at Internal Medicine 2012
ACP's meeting in New Orleans promises many offerings for hospitalists.
Hopes and fears abound at National Bundled Payment Summit
Speakers were optimistic about the potential to reduce health care costs without decreasing profits.
Comanaging pressures: Kidney Week experts advise on hypertension
Certain specialized circumstances can make high blood pressure particularly problematic.
Info + forms = good informed consent
Good informed consent should be a concern for any physician who performs a procedure with risks.
PASHA in Argentina
The authors summarize the latest meeting of the Pan American Society of Hospitalists.
Discussing prognosis
Physicians not only overestimate prognosis, many consciously present a more optimistic prognosis to patients than they privately believe.
Talking points on palliative care
Speakers at the recent National Palliative Care Summit discussed strategies for changing and improving Americans' perceptions of palliative care.
Integrating palliative care into the ICU
Palliative care, rapid response teams, and sepsis were a few of the topics covered at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's 22nd annual National Forum.
Hands-on workshops abound at Waxman Clinical Skills Center
Internal Medicine 2011 attendees can practice intubation and central line placement, among other procedures.
Hospital medicine precourse: From admission to discharge
This new course offers cutting-edge information on hospital medicine.
Careful catheter care reduces cost, complications
The U.S. spends an estimated $2 billion annually on treating catheter-associated bloodstream infections. Learn how to help lower those costs.
Why doctors fight
One of the biggest challenges in getting physicians to work together cooperatively is the fact that they have never been trained to do so.
Avoiding common compliance pitfalls
Adhering to privacy rules and other compliance areas can be difficult in the fast-paced world of hospital medicine.
MGMA surveys show practice ownership, EHRs affect revenue
Hospitalist-owned practices and the specialist physicians employed by them report lower revenue than practices not owned by hospitals or integrated delivery systems.
Benefits of ICU telemedicine uncertain
Experimentation with telemedicine in ICUs has not quite lived up to expectations.
Effects of ICU stay linger long after discharge
A significant proportion of ICU survivors develop post-traumatic stress disorder, but physicians can take steps to reduce the risk and burden.
Twelve ways to improve hospitalist communication
An expert from the annual Medical Group Management Association meeting offers tips.
Future of antibiotics worries infectious disease experts
At the Infectious Diseases Society of America meeting last fall, one of the issues that most riled the experts was antibiotics, specifically the lack of them.
Help from afar
Stroke telemedicine has plenty of champions, but others think that a telephone system is better.
Conference Coverage
Tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) was the star of the show at this year’s International Stroke Conference 2009 in San Diego, with much discussion of expanding its treatment window and several studies presented on gender differences in tPA treatment.
New research on heart failure, elderly surgery at AHA Scientific Sessions
New research on heart failure, elderly surgery at AHA Scientific Sessions.
Brazil's first hospital medicine congress offers promise, challenges
Brazil's first hospital medicine congress offers promise, challenges.
Comanagement commandments
Keep consultation relationships well-defined to avoid problems down the road.
Examining clinical questions in acute coronary syndromes
Recent research could change standard practice.
A mix of the suspected and the surprising at annual stroke meeting
Studies focus on treatment, symptoms and awareness.
Plenary sessions, new research are highlights at 37th Critical Care Congress
Plenary sessions, new research are highlights at 37th Critical Care Congress.
Obscure gastrointestinal bleeding: How to find, and treat, the source
It accounts for 5% of all cases of gastrointestinal hemorrhage. It requires an average of 7.3 diagnostic tests, five hospitalizations and 46 units of blood per patient to evaluate.
Fewer drugs, more bugs: Antibiotic resistance tops concerns at infectious diseases conference
Antibiotic resistance tops concerns at infectious diseases conference.
Experts debate glucose control in the ICU
Studies have shown that controlling blood glucose closely and carefully improves survival and morbidity among intensive care patients, but the ideal target remains controversial.
Diagnosing adrenal insufficiency
Experts debate glucose control in the ICUTesting, steroid use common questions in the ICU.
Building trust aids decision making in end-of-life care
The patient is dying. More medical intervention is futile. But the family, speaking for their loved one, still wants everything done.