Background: Following the COVID-19 pandemic, bedside rounding at our institution diminished significantly, resulting in reduced patient engagement, fragmented communication, and loss of shared situational awareness. Evidence shows that interdisciplinary rounds improve patient comprehension, teamwork, and care quality (O’Leary et al., 2010), reduce communication failures (Stein et al., 2020), and support safer transitions of care (Ramaswamy [...]

Background: Procedural consent conversations are challenging for patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) and/or low health literacy. Pictogram-based visual guides can enhance clinician communication and patient comprehension. Purpose: We developed a literacy- and language-inclusive easy-read visual guide to improve informed consent processes for paracentesis procedures at a large hospital center (figure 1). Description: We created [...]

Background: Clinicians are most likely to incorporate peer feedback (PF) from trusted colleagues (1,2). Despite PF’s impact on practice and outcomes, effective PF is challenging in healthcare (3). Many hospital medicine providers lack formal PF training, creating a skills gap. Workplace cultures often prioritize harmony over growth-oriented critique, making constructive criticism risky and resulting in [...]

Background: There is a growing interest around the variability of pediatric subspecialty consultations being untimely, inequitable, and non-patient centered, leading to concerns to patient safety and quality. Studies have shown that daily rounds vs twice weekly or irregular visits results in decreases in length of stay, morbidity and mortality, overall costs of hospitalization, and readmission [...]

Background: Paging remains a dominant communication modality in academic medical centers. Prior studies have shown that paging is frequent, often interrupts workflow, and may not always be clinically necessary.1,2 However, paging also serves as a proxy for clinical concern, particularly when sent by nursing staff. Academic medical centers support learners with differing levels of experience [...]

Background: The United States is experiencing a shortage of trained endocrinologists. Endocrinology consultation services were identified as an inaccessible yet necessary service at our large suburban Midwestern community hospital. Purpose: We set out to pilot a tele-endocrinology service to assist hospitalists in caring for patients with complex endocrine pathologies and monitor outcomes related to this [...]

Background: Internal medicine residents receive inconsistent consultation training, focusing on which specialists to consult rather than urgency timing. At our residency program, only 12% of residents rated consultation teaching as excellent quality, with inadequate faculty preparation time as the primary barrier.1 No quantitative frameworks exist for systematically teaching consultation urgency assessment,2 leaving residents to develop [...]

Background: Medicine consult rotations are essential in internal medicine training, offering experience in providing consultative care for surgical, psychiatry, rehabilitation, and other non-medicine services, including preoperative evaluation and perioperative management (1). Despite their importance, these rotations often function as part of a hidden curriculum with variable expectations, inconsistent teaching, and limited continuity due to daily [...]

Background: The landscape of surgical care has evolved significantly, characterized by an increasingly elderly population with a high burden of medical comorbidities, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and chronic kidney failure (1). These complex patients are at an elevated risk for major adverse perioperative events, such as myocardial infarction, acute kidney injury, and delirium (2). Hospitalist [...]

Background: Senior residents are essential to ward team education and supervision, yet heavy clinical demands often limit opportunities to deliberately practice teaching and leadership skills. Meanwhile, early PGY-2 residents face the abrupt transition from intern to supervising resident, requiring rapid adaptation to new responsibilities in team leadership, clinical oversight, and teaching. Purpose: Near-peer teaching—where advanced [...]