Help Me Help You: How to Request a Letter of Recommendation.

Letters of recommendation (LORs) are an essential component of a career in medicine. The process for obtaining certain letters, particularly those associated with scheduled periods of professional transition, often is governed by established institutional or specialty norms. The process of requesting LORs in more common scenarios-local or national awards, committee assignments, and leadership positions-many times is less clearly defined, however.

Proceedings from the 2021 SAEM Consensus Conference: Research Priorities for Interventions to Address Social Risks and Needs Identified in Emergency Department Patients.

Introduction: Emergency departments (ED) function as a health and social safety net, regularly taking care of patients with high social risk and need. Few studies have examined ED-based interventions for social risk and need.

Methods: Focusing on ED-based interventions, we identified initial research gaps and priorities in the ED using a literature review, topic expert feedback, and consensus-building.

A Quality Improvement Initiative Featuring Peer-Comparison Prescribing Feedback Reduces Emergency Department Opioid Prescribing.

Background: Opioid prescribing in the United States nearly tripled from 1999 to 2015, and opioid overdose deaths doubled in the same time frame. Emergency departments (EDs) may play a pivotal role in the opioid epidemic as a source of first-time opioid exposure; however, many prescribers are generally unaware of their prescribing behaviors relative to their peers.

Methods: All 117 ED prescribers at an urban academic medical center were provided with regular feedback on individual rates of opioid prescribing relative to their de-identified peers.

Knowledgeable Neighbors: a mobile clinic model for disease prevention and screening in underserved communities.

The Family Van mobile health clinic uses a "Knowledgeable Neighbor" model to deliver cost-effective screening and prevention activities in underserved neighborhoods in Boston, MA. We have described the Knowledgeable Neighbor model and used operational data collected from 2006 to 2009 to evaluate the service. The Family Van successfully reached mainly minority low-income men and women.