38 research outputs found

    Plagiarism

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    Learning objectives: Plagiarism overview A special case: large language models (LLM) and academic writin

    Encephalopathy Tango: When Beta-Lactam Antibiotics Waltz with GABA Receptor

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    Beta-lactam antibiotics are a class of drugs that are widely used to treat a variety of infections. They are generally well-tolerated, but they can cause a variety of side effects, including allergic reactions, acute interstitial nephritis (AIN) and neurotoxicity. We present a patient who developed neurotoxicity after being treated with cephalosporin and carbapenem antibiotics. A 76-year-old female was admitted to the hospital with osteomyelitis of the right foot. She was initially treated with cefepime and daptomycin. She was discharged and then began to experience delirium with visual hallucinations and acute kidney injury. After common causes of confusion were excluded, the patient was believed to have cefepime-related neurotoxicity. She was switched to ertapenem and the delirium was resolved. A few days later Ertapenem was then changed to meropenem based on pseudomonas found in culture. The patient again started to develop delirium after starting the meropenem, and the cause was believed to be meropenem-related neurotoxicity. Her confusion resolved after switching antibiotics to piperacillin-tazobactam. Beta-lactam antibiotics are associated with neurotoxicity, and risk is increased with the geriatric population, female sex, and neurological and kidney diseases. Both Cefepime and Meropenem can cause neurotoxicity and delirium. The mechanism of neurotoxicity is believed to be due to Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) antagonism; Carbapenem binds to GABA receptors while Cefepime decreases GABA release from nerve terminals. Important steps in treating antibiotic-associated neurotoxicity are the withdrawal of the offending drug, use of benzodiazepine, and intermittent dialysis if no response is observed after discontinuation of the offending medication

    Intracystic Hemorrhage In A Simple Liver Cyst Due To Dual Anti-Platelet Therapy After Percutaneous Coronary Intervention

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    Hemorrhage into a simple hepatic cyst often results in development of a complex cystic lesion, which makes this identical to a cystic tumor. We present a striking example of this decision-making in a patient with suspected intracystic hemorrhage from recent anti-platelet medication use post-percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). 83-year-old male presented to the hospital with acute right upper quadrant (RUQ) abdominal pain, severe and constant. This was associated with nausea and constipation. Medical history was significant for recent PCI and initiation of dual anti-platelet therapy (DAPT) ten days ago, and chronic thrombocytopenia. Ultrasound and CT confirmed complex 12.8 x 11.4 x 12.4 cm hepatic cyst, with suspected, intracystic hemorrhage of a simple liver cyst. Given failed conservative management, surgical route was opted. Laparoscopic fenestration of the cyst yielded a large volume of bloody material confirming the diagnosis. Biopsy of the cyst wall showed simple liver cyst with an adherent blood clot. Aspirin was resumed post-operatively, and ticagrelor was continued throughout given the high risk of stent thrombosis. Intracystic hemorrhage in a simple liver cyst, though rare, is a possible complication of DAPT use after PCI. Further use of DAPT usually requires tailored approach to patient’s coronary anatomy, nature of stent used, underlying risk factors and type of bleed

    Quality Improvement Project to increase pneumococcal vaccination rates in adults with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) being treated with immunosuppressants.

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    Abstract Patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are at an increased risk of pneumonia, and using immunosuppressive medications further increases this risk. Hospitalized patients with IBD have a significantly higher mortality rate from infections with pneumonia being one of them. The American College of Gastroenterology recommends pneumococcal vaccination for all IBD patients as a part of preventative care for IBD patients. However, compliance rates of pneumococcal vaccination in IBD patients have been very low. Quality improvement projects in this regard have been successful at demonstrating increased immunization rates. Our quality improvement project was aimed at increasing pneumococcal vaccination rates in these adult IBD patients by establishing a process to identify eligible patients in primary care clinics. Methods: A total of 95 adult patients (under age 65) with IBD who were treated with immunosuppressants and had clinic visits in 2 primary care clinics (one internal medicine residents’ continuity clinic, and one primary care clinic without residents) from January 2010 to December 2020 were screened for their eligibility for pneumococcal vaccination and immunosuppressed status. Eligible patients were contacted via phone to schedule a clinic visit to receive pneumococcal vaccinations and reasons for refusal were documented. All the physicians, physician assistants, and nursing staff were informed of the project, and the plan was set up to identify yearly champions in each clinic whose patients are up to date with their pneumococcal vaccinations to ensure the project\u27s sustainability. Data were collected and analyzed using descriptive statistics. Fisher’s exact test compared patients with updated pneumococcal vaccination to those not up to date. McNemar’s exact test compared the before and after vaccination status. Results: A total of 95 patients (28 patients with ulcerative colitis and 67 patients with Crohn’s disease) treated with immunosuppressant medications were evaluated and only 10 patients (10%) were up to date with pneumococcal vaccination. 56 patients (58%) had not started pneumococcal vaccinations and were due to receive PCV 13 and 29 patients (30%) were due for PPSV 23. After the intervention, 32 patients (33.6%) had received pneumococcal vaccination at 6 months follow-up. 16 patients (16%) refused to get pneumococcal vaccination until after the consultation with their primary gastroenterologists and had not received the immunization at 6 months follow-up. The compliance rate of pneumococcal vaccinations was increased by 23% (p Conclusion: Patients with inflammatory bowel disease are at risk for vaccine-preventable illnesses, and pneumococcal vaccination rates are consistently low in this patient population. A simple primary care clinic-based intervention described in our project significantly improved the pneumococcal vaccination rate

    Physician and Patient Moves in the Hospital Do Not Move Patient Satisfaction: A Single-Center Retrospective Analysis

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    Background. Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) is a standardized survey for measuring patient\u27s experiences at US hospitals. There is a shift towards geographically assigning patients and physicians. However, its impact on patient satisfaction scores has not been studied. Objective: Examine the correlation between patient experience and overall hospital rating with the number of physicians seen and the number of times the patient was moved during a hospitalization. Methods: A retrospective observational study was performed using select HCAHPS & Press Ganey survey questions to assess physician satisfaction scores and overall hospital rating and recommendation scores. Results: There was no significant difference across the select survey questions based on the number of times a patient was moved or the hospitalists seen during a hospitalization on most questions. A higher case mix index was associated with an increased likelihood of receiving the highest rating for the hospital (OR 1.39,95% CI 1.03-1.88), p 0.03), and two other physician communication questions. An increase in the length of stay was associated with a lower likelihood of receiving the highest rating for similar physician communication questions (OR 0.91, 95% CI 0.83 to 0.99,p 0.04) Conclusions: The number of hospitalists seen by the patient and the number of times a patient is moved during a hospitalization is not associated with physicians related patient satisfaction scores, overall care received in the hospital, or if the patient would recommend the hospital to others

    POCUS not a HOCUS

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    Point of care ultrasound Outline: Clinical cases Definition of POCUS History of POCUS POCUS in UME, GME, Hospitalist medicine and literature Competency, certification Future need

    Multi-model hybrid ensemble weighted adaptive approach with decision level fusion for personalized affect recognition based on visual cues

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    In the domain of affective computing different emotional expressions play an important role. To convey the emotional state of human emotions, facial expressions or visual cues are used as an important and primary cue. The facial expressions convey humans affective state more convincingly than any other cues. With the advancement in the deep learning techniques, the convolutional neural network (CNN) can be used to automatically extract the features from the visual cues; however variable sized and biased datasets are a vital challenge to be dealt with as far as implementation of deep models is concerned. Also, the dataset used for training the model plays a significant role in the retrieved results. In this paper, we have proposed a multi-model hybrid ensemble weighted adaptive approach with decision level fusion for personalized affect recognition based on the visual cues. We have used a CNN and pre-trained ResNet-50 model for the transfer learning. VGGFace model’s weights are used to initialize weights of ResNet50 for fine-tuning the model. The proposed system shows significant improvement in test accuracy in affective state recognition compared to the singleton CNN model developed from scratch or transfer learned model. The proposed methodology is validated on The Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces (KDEF) dataset with 77.85% accuracy. The obtained results are promising compared to the existing state of the art methods

    Cost of a learner in pediatric ED

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    Background: Experiential learning in a cornerstone of medical education, but impacts throughput, utilization of resources and patient outcomes. Objectives: Our study sought to determine the cost of a resident across various throughput, utilization, and patient outcome measures. Methods: This retrospective study was conducted in 2016 in the pediatric emergency department of an urban tertiary care hospital. . We compared various throughput, utilization and patient outcome measures between resident-covered and nonresident–covered patients. A subgroup analysis was performed based on complexity as determined by CPT codes. Results: 33,278 patient encounters occurred between 1 January 2016, and 31 December 2016. Of these, 8,434 (25.42%) were resident-covered patients. Across all encounters, throughput, utilization and patient experience measures were unfavorable for the resident covered group. In subgroup analysis based on complexity of patients, throughput measures were either unfavorable or there was a trend towards unfavorability across all complexities for the resident covered group. Overall utilization and patient outcome measures were unfavorable in low and moderate complexity patients for the resident covered group. In high complexity patients, most of the utilization and patient outcome measures were similar in both groups. Conclusion: Presence of a resident led to unfavorable increases in many throughput, utilization and outcome measures, a difference which disappeared in most cases with higher complexity patients. Therefore, the cost of a resident may actually decrease with increasing patient complexity

    Cost of a learner in pediatric ED

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    : Experiential learning in a cornerstone of medical education, but impacts throughput, utilization of resources and patient outcomes. : Our study sought to determine the cost of a resident across various throughput, utilization, and patient outcome measures. : This retrospective study was conducted in 2016 in the pediatric emergency department of an urban tertiary care hospital. . We compared various throughput, utilization and patient outcome measures between resident-covered and nonresident-covered patients. A subgroup analysis was performed based on complexity as determined by CPT codes. : 33,278 patient encounters occurred between 1 January 2016, and 31 December 2016. Of these, 8,434 (25.42%) were resident-covered patients. Across all encounters, throughput, utilization and patient experience measures were unfavorable for the resident covered group. In subgroup analysis based on complexity of patients, throughput measures were either unfavorable or there was a trend towards unfavorability across all complexities for the resident covered group. Overall utilization and patient outcome measures were unfavorable in low and moderate complexity patients for the resident covered group. In high complexity patients, most of the utilization and patient outcome measures were similar in both groups. : Presence of a resident led to unfavorable increases in many throughput, utilization and outcome measures, a difference which disappeared in most cases with higher complexity patients. Therefore, the cost of a resident may actually decrease with increasing patient complexity

    Menetrier Disease

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    Menetrier disease is a rare disorder that is characterized by giant mucosal folds in the proximal part of the stomach, diminished acid secretion, and a protein-losing state with hypoalbuminemia. Other names for Menetrier disease are hypoproteinemic hypertrophic gastropathy and giant hypertrophic gastritis. This condition is common in middle-aged men. The age group affected is generally between 30 years to 60 years. It is less commonly described in females and children. In adults, the condition is often progressive. The etiopathogenesis of Menetrier disease is not entirely understood. It affects mainly the proximal part of the stomach (body and fundus) and spares the distal portion (antrum)
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