Background: While academic hospital medicine (HM) has experienced rapid growth, criteria for promotion, especially regarding scholarship, lack data to inform practice. We sought to describe the characteristics and scholarly progression of academic hospitalists who have been promoted to full professor (FP). Methods: We identified FP HM faculty of all medical schools ranked for research by [...]

Background: Pulmonary embolism (PE), refers to obstruction of the pulmonary artery or one of its branches by material (thrombus, tumor, air or fat) that originated elsewhere in the body.Wells criteria must be part of the clinical assessment for PE. With these criteria, we can classify patients as high probability (>6 pts), moderate (2 to 6 [...]

Background: The Intermediate Care Unit was developed in the 1960s and 70s as a level of care between general medicine (GMU) and intensive care units (ICU) [1]. While all IMU patients could be cared for in an ICU, hospitals have too few ICU beds to accommodate patients who are not critically ill, and higher levels [...]

Background: The Intermediate Care Unit (IMU) was developed in the 1960s – 1970s as a level of care between general medicine (GMU) and intensive care units (ICU) [1]. The Society of Critical Care Medicine has established guidelines for admitting patients to an IMU based on severity of illness or need for frequent or complex nursing [...]

Background: Interhospital transfer (IHT) is intended to improve access to specialized therapies, maintain continuity of care, or care concordant with patients’ wishes; however, it is correlated with higher costs, longer length of stay, and greater mortality for many patients, even after illness severity adjustment (1-5). A better understanding of frontline providers’ reasons to accept transfer [...]

Case Presentation: The patient was a 54yo male with history of alcoholic cirrhosis, CKD, and depression who originally presented to the hospital for a fall, L orbital fracture, and also developed rhabdomyolysis. His hospitalization was complicated by an NSTEMI and he underwent cardiac catheterization with PCI of an anomalous circumflex artery and placement of an [...]

Case Presentation: A 33-year-old obese woman with no significant past medical history initially presented to her primary care physician with fevers, pharyngitis, rash, malaise, and myalgias for ten days. Her rash was patchy, nonpruritic and worsened with her high spiking fevers. The rash progressed in a centrifugal pattern. She had also developed significant arthralgias in [...]

Case Presentation: A 54 year-old-woman presented with one week of progressive fatigue, shortness of breath, and productive cough.  Physical exam revealed fever of 101.6⁰ F, poor oral dentition, bilateral pulmonary crackles and left lower quadrant abdominal tenderness. Initial laboratory workup was remarkable for elevated procalcitonin which prompted initiation of broad spectrum antibiotics. Chest X-ray was [...]

Case Presentation: A 43-year-old woman was admitted to the hospital for increasing lower extremity swelling and dyspnea on exertion. Past medical history is pertinent for hypertension, obesity, and stroke. A few months prior, she had a hysterectomy for leiomyomata. Physical examination was within normal limits except for jugular venous distension and irregular heart rate and [...]

Case Presentation: A 44 year-old female with a history of essential hypertension presented with one month of progressive chest pain, dyspnea and fevers. These symptoms were associated with a dry cough, sore throat and symmetric joint pains with swelling and morning stiffness of the hands and wrists. Her chest pain was left sided and knife-like, [...]