Hospital Medicine
- Should we stop aspirin before noncardiac surgery?
It depends on the type of surgery and the reason the patient is taking aspirin.
- Infective endocarditis: Beyond the usual tests
Newer imaging tests are increasingly used as alternatives or adjuncts to echocardiography for selected patients.
- If a picture is worth a thousand words, a patient is worth ten thousand
Images portray real patients with stories to tell, sometimes mundane, sometimes profound, but always worth hearing.
- Is chest radiography routinely needed after thoracentesis?
No, it should be done only in certain situations, for example, if pneumothorax is suspected.
- A 69-year-old woman with double vision and lower-extremity weakness
The onset was sudden, and the symptoms were gradually getting worse.
- Anti-Xa assays: What is their role today in antithrombotic therapy?
Should clinicians abandon the aPTT for monitoring heparin therapy in favor of anti-Xa assays?
- Infection or not infection, that is the question—Is procalcitonin the answer?
What is different about procalcitonin that allows it to succeed as a biomarker where CRP and the ESR have failed?
- Rapidly progressive pleural effusion January 2019
Readers comment about deviation from guidelines during treatment of a patient with rapidly progressive pleural effusion (January 2019) and the effect of metformin on vitamin B12 levels (January 2019).
- Acute kidney injury after hip or knee replacement: Can we lower the risk?
Various risk factors have been identified, and some are potentially modifiable.