Background: The integration of Point of Care Ultrasound (POCUS) in hospital medicine, particularly for inferior vena cava (IVC) assessment, promises significant advancements in patient care. This study investigates the efficacy of POCUS with IVC evaluation in guiding fluid management decisions upon admission, a crucial aspect of hospitalist care. Methods: Conducted from January 1, 2021, to [...]

Background: High need patients are characterized by medical complexity, high amounts of health acute care utilization and disproportionate costs[1]. Recent studies have characterized worsening of loneliness in the general population, however, it has not been characterized in the high need population. We hypothesized that increases in loneliness would be associated with increasing symptoms of depression; [...]

Background: The integration of Point of Care Ultrasound (POCUS) in clinical settings has been progressively recognized for its potential in improving patient outcomes. Our study introduces the Admission POCUS Examination (Apex) protocol, a comprehensive POCUS-based approach designed to optimize patient care at the point of admission in hospital medicine wards. Methods: This retrospective study involved [...]

Background: The diagnosis of sepsis is often associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality. When it occurs in patients with Heart failure (HF), those rates increase dramatically. This study focuses on the differences in the outcomes in septic patients with Heart Failure with preserved Ejection Fraction (HFpEF) versus patients with Heart Failure with reduced [...]

Background: Postpartum Depression can have a negative impact on the physical, cognitive, and behavioral development of children. In the most extreme cases, it can be associated with the cause of death for mothers and their children. Some risk factors that can lead to Postpartum Depression are teenage pregnancy, late or lack of prenatal care, food/housing [...]

Background: The physical exam for heart failure can be limited by poor reproducibility, lack of specificity, provider inexperience, or patient habitus. To estimate the JVP or HJR requires identifying the internal jugular vein (IJV). Finding the IJV can be limited by those factors but the addition of ultrasound can improve its identification. Ultrasound can therefore [...]

Background: The benefits of recruiting health care professionals with lived experiences which reflect the patients they serve are well known. Ethnic and racial concordance between physicians and patients has been shown to improve care for marginalized patients as well as decrease the implicit biases of their fellow colleagues. Systemic racism’s impact on physician representation necessitates [...]

Case Presentation: Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES) is a neurological disorder characterized by symptoms of encephalopathy and radiographic findings suggestive of vasogenic edema. Although PRES is most often triggered by hypertensive emergencies, sepsis and immunosuppressive medications have also been implicated in its pathogenesis. We present a case of PRES due to lithium toxicity.A 47-year-old female [...]

Case Presentation: Our patient is a 42-year-old Hispanic female with a past medical history of hypothyroidism, iron deficiency anemia, and onychomycosis. She presented with complaint of generalized bruising all over her body for last 2 days. The patient reported that she was in her usual state of health except that she was started on Terbinafine [...]

Case Presentation: 34 yo female nonsmoker with PCOS and hirsutism on spironolactone admitted for sleeve gastrectomy for obesity.   Pre-op bp 117/50. BP began to increase intraoperatively and postoperatively into the evening with a maximum bp of 181/104.  She experienced intractable post-op emesis. After the surgery, she noted chest pain, shaking and numbness in her hands which resolved by the morning. On [...]