Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the shift from in-person to virtual recruitment, prompting residency and fellowship programs to adopt innovative strategies, such as leveraging social media platforms to attract applicants and enhance visibility. Our aim was to identify and describe the presence of U.S.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFellowship is a prime opportunity for sub-specialists to hone their teaching skills, however many fellowships lack formal teaching curricula. Existing curricula may not include supervision of fellows' teaching skills. We designed a Fellows as Teachers curriculum for geriatric medicine fellows that incorporates direct observation and feedback to improve their teaching skills.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) developed the Milestones as a tool to aid trainee assessment based on the framework of the six core competencies of practice. Variability in the interpretation and application of the original Milestones prompted the ACGME to convene work groups within the different specialties and subspecialties to update the Milestones. The Geriatric Medicine work group was convened in 2019 with the goal of clarifying and simplifying the language of the Milestones, revising content to be specific to geriatrics, and developing supplemental resources to aid in implementation and use.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity for geriatricians, especially geriatrics fellows, to demonstrate leadership in a crisis that has significantly affected the 65 and older demographic. Given their expertise in care delivery to complex, multimorbid patients, as well as their ability to navigate different healthcare settings, geriatrics fellows became a valuable resource during the pandemic, particularly at one large, urban academic health system. Their training in patient-centered, value-based care helped determine the best course of action for patients not only in the hospital, but also in the community.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Geriatrics and palliative medicine specialists are uniquely trained to provide expert coordinated care for older adults and seriously ill and complex patients. Health system leadership geared towards this patient population is critically important as society ages. Currently, there is no standardized approach to teaching core leadership skills.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Hydrocephalus shunt malfunction can-also in children-occur insidiously without clear symptoms of raised intracranial pressure (ICP) or changes in ventricular size, imposing a diagnostic challenge. Computerized shunt infusion studies enable quantitative shunt function assessment. We report on feasibility and results of this technique in children in a two center cross-sectional study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Rapid molecular diagnostic (RMD) platforms may lead to better antibiotic use. Our objective was to develop analytical strategies to enhance the interpretation of RMDs for clinicians.
Methods: We compared the performance characteristics of 4 RMD platforms for detecting resistance against β-lactams in 72 highly resistant isolates of Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae (PRIMERS I).
Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) describe the core work that constitutes a discipline's specific expertise and provide the framework for faculty to perform meaningful assessment of geriatric fellows. This article describes the collaborative process of developing the end-of-training American Geriatrics Society (AGS) and Association of Directors of Geriatric Academic Programs (ADGAP) EPAs for Geriatric Medicine (AGS/ADGAP EPAs). The geriatrics EPAs describes a geriatrician's fundamental expertise and how geriatricians differ from general internists and family practitioners who care for older adults.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article describes the curricular milestones for geriatric fellows and the process used to develop them. The curricular milestones were developed to determine what every graduating geriatric fellow should be able to demonstrate to ensure that they will be able to practice effectively and safely in all care settings and with different older adult populations. Three major domains were identified: Caring for the Elderly Patient, Systems-Based Care for Elder Patients, and Geriatric Syndromes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Communication skills are critical in Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine because these patients confront complex clinical scenarios. We evaluated the effectiveness of the Geritalk communication skills course by comparing pre- and post-course real-time assessment of the participants leading family meetings. We also evaluated the participants' sustained skills practice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInternal medicine residents today face significant challenges in caring for an increasingly complex patient population within ever-changing education and health care environments. As a result, medical educators, health care system leaders, payers, and patients are demanding change and accountability in graduate medical education (GME). A 2012 Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) retreat identified medical education as an area for collaboration between internal medicine and geriatric medicine.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFQuality improvement (QI) initiatives are critical in the care of older adults who are more vulnerable to substandard care. QI education meets aspects of core Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education competencies and prepares learners for the rising focus on performance measurement in health care. The authors developed, implemented, and evaluated a QI curriculum for geriatrics fellows.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Most U.S. medical schools and training programs lack sufficient faculty expertise in geriatrics to train future physicians to care for the growing population of older adults.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDischarge summaries (DS) communicate important clinical information from inpatient to outpatient settings. Previous studies noted increased adverse events and rehospitalization due to poor DS quality. We postulated that an audit and feedback intervention of DS completed by geriatric medicine fellows would improve the completeness of their summaries.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Many hospitalized older adults develop iatrogenic complications unrelated to their presenting diagnoses that can result in longer hospitalizations, functional impairment, or unanticipated medical or surgical interventions. These complications are often referred to as "hazards of hospitalization" and include delirium, malnutrition, urinary incontinence, pressure ulcers, depression, falls, restraint use, infection, functional decline, adverse drug effects, and death. The aims of this study were to assess house staff member awareness of older patients' risk factors for developing hazards of hospitalization and to determine areas in which interventions may help improve recognition.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAgainst 182 anaerobe and 241 aerobe strains obtained from diabetic foot infections, doripenem was the most active carbapenem against Pseudomonas aeruginosa (MIC(90), 2 microg/ml), more active than imipenem against Proteus mirabilis, and ertapenem was more active against Escherichia coli and Klebsiella spp. The MIC(50) and MIC(90) values were < or =0.125 microg/ml for methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus and all streptococci and 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAgainst 443 aerobic and anaerobic bacteria isolated from diabetic foot infections, ceftobiprole MICs (microg/ml) at which 90% of the isolates tested were inhibited were as follows: methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, 1; methicillin-susceptible S. aureus and Staphylococcus lugdunensis, 0.5; Anaerococcus prevotii, 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTigecycline was tested against 396 strains of lesser-known anaerobic species encountered in human infections. It was active against all gram-positive strains and 228 of 232 gram-negative anaerobes at < or =1 microg/ml. One strain of Prevotella oralis was nonsusceptible at 8 microg/ml.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTests of dalbavancin's in vitro activity against 209 aerobic and 120 anaerobic isolates from pretreatment diabetic foot infections showed an MIC(90) of < or =0.125 microg/ml against methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA), methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), and 120 anaerobes (Clostridium perfringens, other clostridia, Peptoniphilus asaccharolyticus, Finegoldia magna, and Anaerococcus prevotii), compared to respective MIC(90)s for MSSA and MRSA of 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDaptomycin has in vitro activity against gram-positive anaerobic bacteria, although limited numbers of species have been tested. We studied the in vitro activities of daptomycin, vancomycin, and penicillin against more than 100 strains each of Clostridium difficile, C. perfringens, Finegoldia magna, and Propionibacterium acnes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe in vitro activity of 11 antimicrobials was tested against 74 recent anaerobic isolates obtained from pretreatment cultures in pediatric patients with complicated intra-abdominal infections using the CLSI M11-A-6 agar dilution method. Carbapenems, beta-lactamase inhibitor combinations and metronidazole retained good activity, while all Bacteroides fragilis group species produced beta-lactamase and were penicillin resistant and 43% were either intermediately susceptible or resistant to clindamycin. Cefoxitin had moderate activity against B.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUsing the NCCLS agar dilution method, we studied the in vitro activity of retapamulin (SB-275833) against 141 clinical isolates of Propionibacterium species, including seven multiresistant strains, and found retapamulin to be the most active agent among those tested with MICs of < or = 1 microg/ml against all isolates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe in vitro activity of moxifloxacin against 923 recent anaerobic isolates obtained from pretreatment cultures in patients with complicated intra-abdominal infections was studied using the CLSI M11-A-6 agar dilution method. Moxifloxacin was active against 87% (96 of 110) Bacteroides fragilis strains at < or = 1 microg/ml and 87% (79 of 90) B. thetaiotaomicron strains at < or = 2 microg/ml.
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