Background: Despite the increase in female medical students and clinicians, gender disparities continue to exist for female clinicians today, from limits on upward mobility and leadership positions to unequal pay and more. Within medical education, existing research shows male students outperform female students on the USMLE Step 1 licensing examination, which has longer-term ramifications on [...]

Background: After Libby Zion died tragically in a teaching hospital, much attention from the medical community, public and government, was directed at resident training and the number of hours worked consecutively. This marked a new era heralded by close scrutiny of the time residents spent in the hospital. Two dramatic reductions were mandated nationally by [...]

Background: Today, Medicare patients account for approximately 50% of hospital days. Hospitalists are a key strategy for providing care to hospitalized older adults, however, most of these hospitalists have not received geriatric training. Faculty development is an important component to the success of a hospitalist program. We developed a geriatric-focused lecture series to improve the [...]

Background: Following hospitalization, a reported 20% of all Medicare patients are discharged to skilled nursing facilities (SNFs).  Sepsis was the cause of 25-68% of readmissions from SNFs based on a review of Medicare readmissions from patients at 96 SNFs in southeast Michigan. Sepsis is also the most common all-cause admission diagnosis and represents over $20 [...]

Background: Many hospitals do not have the means to supervise daily physical therapy (PT) for elderly inpatients. PT delivered in a group setting has the potential to allow hospitals to consolidate resources and extend PT services to more elderly patients within the hospital. However, little to no efforts have been made in implementing the delivery [...]

Background: The Charlson comorbidity index (CCI) has been one of the most commonly used and validated prognostication tools. In addition to being a valuable resource for health services researchers, the CCI is being used in clinical practice by hospitals to identify patients at risk for poor outcomes. The use of the CCI in older adults [...]

Background: Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) comprises of approximately 15% of the total breast cancers. There is limited data on treatment outcome of these patients in elderly population. We report our experience with elderly patients with TNBC treated at our tertiary care center. Methods: With IRB approval, the Cleveland Clinic’s database was used to identify [...]

Background: Delirium is a prevalent and dangerous state of confusion that affects millions >65 years of age (1-3). Delirium is underdiagnosed and undertreated due to lack of effective screening methods (4, 5).  Undetected delirium in hospitalized elderly patients substantially increases mortality, length of stay, and post-discharge institutionalization rates (1-3). Beyond being a very dangerous condition [...]

Background: Although code status discussion does not routinely happen at hospitals in Japan, many people reportedly start to think of their end of life issue and would like to express it, according to questionnaire survey conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. There has been no report which focuses on prevalence of do-not-resuscitate [...]