Background: EHR time motion studies have shown a significant time burden and concern that bedside manner, physical exam skills and physician wellness are at risk. However, nearly all studies to date have only focused on practicing physicians and residency training programs. Nearly all U.S. based medical schools allow medical student access, thus EHR exposure actually […]

Background: Social and environmental factors negatively affect the healthcare of low-income, vulnerable populations. Such determinants of health are often manifested as unmet basic needs that may be remedied through legal mediation, most commonly regarding housing, income, utilities, employment, education, nutrition and family issues. Medical Legal Partnerships (MLPs) provide an interdisciplinary, comprehensive approach to healthcare, utilizing […]

Background: Rapid response teams (RRTs) are a relatively new and growing trend in the United States and throughout the world. The operational characteristics have not been well defined. This has implications regarding staffing, equipment, supplies, and expenditures and other considerations in order to ensure a prompt and efficient response to any RRT call and to […]

Background: Background:Compassion fatigue is a form of occupational stress which occurs when individuals are exposed to suffering and trauma on an ongoing basis. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of compassion fatigue among medical students (M3 and M4) at MCW during clinical clerkship. Methods: Methods: A questionnaire was administered to 403 […]

Background: Hospital‐acquired venous thromboembolism (HA‐VTE) is a morbid, often fatal, and — in cases of pulmonary embolism (PE) or lower‐extremity deep venous thrombosis (LE DVT) — pharmacologically potentially preventable condition. Because the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services now mandates use of a “present‐on‐admission” flag for all codes, discharge data from a range of hospitals […]

Background: The National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) mandates shelf examinations for all upper-level medical students completing the Internal Medicine (IM) clerkship. Undergraduate medical curricula have adopted many disparate strategies for succinctly delivering “high-yield” topics to students prior to their examinations, such as PowerPoint presentations, mock examinations, and review of challenging questions from question banks […]

Background: The concept of using Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) in undergraduate medical education (UME) arose because residency program directors noticed a significant decline in their interns’ ability to perform the basic skills required of them upon starting residency. The internal medicine (IM) sub-internship (sub-I) rotation is primed to address the EPAs especially pertinent to the […]

Background: Central venous catheter (CVC) occlusion is a common occurrence, affecting approximately 30% of all CVCs. If a catheter is blocked, either the blockage must be cleared or the catheter will have to be replaced to resume proper function. The objective of this study was to compare patient outcomes associated with the use of alteplase […]

Background: Between 44,000 and 98,000 patients die as the result of medical errors annually. Suboptimal communication is the root cause of most sentinel events in hospitalized patients. Implementation of resident duty hours has resulted in increased frequency of patient handoffs. In turn, increased handoffs are associated with adverse patient safety events. Intensive intern training in […]

Background: Third and fourth year medical students’ experience on general internal medicine ward teams is an integral part of medical student education. At many institutions this experience includes participation in unit based Care Coordination Rounds (CCRs), including our own. These daily multidisciplinary discharge planning meetings are ubiquitous, however students are often uncomfortable presenting at these […]