Background: Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) is becoming an increasingly valuable tool in Internal Medicine. With the proper training, POCUS can provide insight into diagnostic dilemmas, resulting in expedited management and enhancing patient care. However, the ability to effectively utilize POCUS is directly related to the extent of each individual’s training. It is therefore critical to implement [...]

Background: Communication between hospital and outpatient clinicians is a key component to successful care transitions for older adults, yet this communication is frequently lacking. In addition, residents in academic medical centers are not routinely provided with feedback about post-discharge outcomes or opportunities for improvement. Purpose: To implement weekly video conferences that utilize the electronic medical [...]

Background: Point-of-Care-Ultrasound (POCUS) is increasingly recognized as a useful diagnostic tool in hospital medicine. US-based resident physicians are increasingly trained in the use of POCUS, but education and training for hospitalist attendings may lag behind creating a potential safety gap in supervision. We developed a test assessing knowledge of routine applications of POCUS used in [...]

Background: Strong evidence exists showing that effective communication in healthcare conversations improves outcomes such as patient satisfaction, safety, reduced malpractice suits, physician professional fulfillment and burnout prevention. Formal communication skills training in medical education is often limited to targeted sessions such as those focused on delivering bad news, code status and end of life care [...]

Background: Ethics is at the core of a physician’s professional identity. As internists, we are constantly grappling with medical and moral uncertainty. While ethical action is an integral component of professionalism, most residency programs offer little formal training to systematically explore the ethical dimensions of our work. Medical ethics education can promote moral development and [...]

Background: Senior residents often serve as the primary educator for medical students and interns on their inpatient medicine rotations. Additionally, the act of teaching enhances the resident’s own knowledge acquisition and retention. Although residents desire to teach more, insufficient time is a barrier to preparing and providing teaching. Thus, senior residents require adequate resources to [...]

Background: Multidisciplinary (MDR) team rounds were established at Halifax hospital as daily, dedicated interactions between varying members of the care team on each inpatient floor. Members of the care team include physicians, nurses, physical therapists, pharmacists, and case managers. These multidisciplinary interactions allow for smooth, real-time, and accurate information that facilitate communication and enhance the [...]

Background: At the University of Colorado, we developed the ‘Health Innovations Scholars Program’ (HISP), a 5-week intensive training program for pre-clinical medical students who seek to lead innovative transformation of the healthcare system. The program focuses on quality improvement, patient safety, leadership skills, design-thinking, and change management delivered through didactic sessions and applied to an [...]

Background: Recently coined the “fifth pillar to the bedside physical exam” in a 2018 JAMA article, a growing number of physicians have started incorporating point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) into their clinical assessments. Many medical schools have already started to integrate POCUS into their educational curriculum. With the emergence of more affordable handheld solutions, practicing physicians and [...]

Background: Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has become a ubiquitous tool in clinical care. However, the optimal timing and methods of POCUS integration into medical education remains unknown. We aim to identify and evaluate the baseline competency, improvement and feedback from trainees after participating the POCUS curriculum. Methods: In 2017, National Taiwan University hospitalists established a standardized [...]