The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) held their annual conference this week in National Harbor, MD. The group brings together hospitalist clinicians (physicians and advanced practice providers) and practice administrators, researchers and clinician educators, academicians and community clinicians.
Updates
In this fast-paced field, our clinical approaches also adapt quickly to new science. The Updates in Hospital Medicine session is the biggest talk of the conference. The speakers covered important practice-changing literature including trials about normal saline vs lactated ringers and adverse kidney events (takeaway: choose a balanced crystalloid!) and adverse impacts of seemingly innocuous supplemental oxygen therapy. The latter added to the strong theme throughout the conference of reducing waste in inpatient care and improving value.
Gray Area Debates
This conference each year always has high-yield clinical conversations. There were debates on gray areas in hospital medicine, e.g., does contrast dye actually cause kidney injury and should we be holding certain antihypertensives perioperatively? There were also excellent updates in pharmacology and management of common inpatient clinical conditions like congestive heart failure and decompensated cirrhosis.
I was happy to see that how we care for patients at Duke is the forefront of care and Duke hospitalists have already embraced new guidelines.
Keynote Addresses Physician Burnout
One of the keynote speakers was Dr Tait Shanafelt, a researcher at Stanford and a thought leader on physician wellness. He emphasized that physician burnout is a patient safety issue and we need to address it as a system in additional to individual action. It made me proud that this is already an ongoing conversation at Duke.
Duke Well Represented
Duke was well-represented as always at this conference, with hospitalists from DUH, DRH and DRAH present. A clinical vignette from residents mentored by Dr Aubrey Jolly Graham was a winning abstract in the poster competition! Most poster authorship included a learner, either student or resident. Dr Juliessa Pavon from Duke Geriatrics also had two posters at the meeting and I co-hosted a fun Medical Jeopardy session. Here are the Duke Hospital Medicine team members who presented at the national conference:
- Dr Cara O’Brien
Characterizing sepsis encounters across community and quarternary hospitals within an academic health system. - Dr Jenny Van Kirk, Dr Nilesh Patel, Dr Elizabeth Hankollari, Dr Cara O’Brien
Implementation of a simulation curriculum - Dr Andrea Archibald, Dr Paul Zimmerman, Dr Poonam Sharma
Transparency in resident team admission assignment: innovation and early results - Dr Aubrey Jolly Graham
What the gel? An unusual presentation of acute digital ischemia - Dr Joanna Kipnes
Not your average sinusitis - Dr David Ming
Parents supporting patients of hospitalized children with medical complexity: a pilot study
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