In the News
Many patients do not use or discard prescription opioids after surgery, review finds
More needs to be done to reduce the oversupply of opioids after surgery because prescriptions are often not fully used, and easily diverted for nonmedical use, study authors said.
HCV treatment by NPs, PCPs appears safe, effective as that provided by subspecialists
Reversing restrictions that limit prescribing of direct-acting antivirals might allow rapid escalation of safe, effective therapy for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and could improve the care of patients, study authors noted.
MKSAP quiz: Evaluation for hematemesis
A 57-year-old woman is evaluated in the emergency department for an episode of hematemesis that occurred 1 hour ago. She had previously felt well except for a recent knee injury, for which she has been taking ibuprofen. She currently is experiencing lightheadedness and weakness. Following a physical exam and lab studies, what is the most appropriate form of catheter access for this patient?
Aspirin does not appear to increase heart failure events in patients with reduced ejection fraction
No difference was seen between aspirin-treated and warfarin-treated patients for time to any first heart failure event or to first heart failure hospitalization.
ACP encourages participation in National Survey of Healthcare Organizations and Systems
The goal of the survey is to gather information from physicians on what is important to improving health system performance and to understand how health care organizations adopt and spread evidence-based innovations.
A part of patient care that I was not taught in medical school
Yul Ejnes, MD, MACP, continues his monthly column at KevinMD in a post about how expressing condolences is a part of patient care.
And the winner is …
ACP Internist Weekly has tallied the voting from its latest cartoon contest, where readers are invited to match wits against their peers to provide the most original and amusing caption.