Barbara Slawski, MD, MS, SFHM, and Cynthia Cooper, MD, hadn’t met in person until early 2018. But that doesn’t mean they haven’t spent a lot of time together.
Once a month, the two hospitalists checked in with one another through wide-ranging phone calls. Together, they have combed the medical literature and conferred over the past year, making long lists of candidate studies for the “Top 20” journal articles of the year for practicing hospitalists.
The two physicians will comoderate Tuesday’s “Update in Hospital Medicine” session, where they will summarize research findings of these “Top 20” articles. Their hope is to present research that each attendee can bring home to improve patient outcomes on a daily basis, while making for a smoother and more efficient practice.
Dr. Barbara Slawski
Dr. Slawski, chief of the section of perioperative medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, said the presentations will not simply summarize study results but also will help attendees focus on the key findings – the clinical pearls – that represent real opportunities to update practice.
Since hospital medicine crosses so many disciplines, each physician said, in separate interviews, that doing justice to the literature has been time consuming and intellectually challenging – but worthwhile.
Dr. Cynthia Cooper
Dr. Cooper, a hospitalist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, said that, although she and Dr. Slawski practice in geographically diverse areas, their practice settings – academic medical centers – have many similarities. She said that, as she reviewed the medical literature over the past year, she gave considerable thought to the particular challenges and demands of hospitalists who practice in community hospitals and rural settings, where the level of support and access to subspecialty consults might be very different from the academic milieu.
“We hope that our unique approaches lend more breadth to the session,” said Dr. Slawski. “We want to make sure we have a good representation of SHM’s constituency, and that we present high-impact studies.”
To hit the mark of articles that are relevant for all, Dr. Cooper said she wants to make sure to focus on the practicalities of hospital-based practice – possible topics include prediction scores, hepatic encephalopathy, and the management of sepsis.
Neither Dr. Slawski nor Dr. Cooper reported any relevant conflicts of interest.
Update in Hospital Medicine
Tuesday, 1:40-2:40 p.m.
Palms Ballroom
© Frontline Medical Communications 2018-2021. Reprinted with permission, all rights reserved.