Faculty Bibliography

Objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) provide a controlled, simulated setting for competency assessments, while unannounced simulated patients (USPs) measure competency in situ or real-world settings. This exploratory study describes differences in primary care residents' skills when caring for the same simulated patient case in OSCEs versus in a USP encounter. Data reported describe a group of residents (n=20) who were assessed following interaction with the same simulated patient case in two distinct settings: an OSCE and a USP visit at our safety-net clinic from 2009 to 2010. In both scenarios, the simulated patient presented as an asthmatic woman with limited understanding of illness management. Residents were rated through a behaviourally anchored checklist on visit completion. Summary scores (mean % well done) were calculated by domain and compared using paired sample t-tests. Residents performed significantly better with USPs on 7 of 10 items and in two of three aggregate assessment domains (p<0.05). OSCE structure may impede assessment of activation and treatment planning skills, which are better assessed in real-world settings. This exploration of outcomes from our two assessments using the same clinical case lays a foundation for future research on variation in situated performance. Using both assessments during residency will provide a more thorough understanding of learner competency.

BACKGROUND:Statins are the mainstay of treatment for low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) lowering, however, some patients cannot tolerate statins because of adverse effects. Ezetimibe and proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 inhibitors (PCSK9i) are alternative treatment options. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to compare LDL-C reduction with ezetimibe vs PCSK9i in patients not on statins. METHODS:PubMed and EMBASE were searched until 14th March 2020 for randomized clinical trials (RCTs) assessing the efficacy of ezetimibe vs PCSK9i in patients not on statins. The primary outcome was a reduction in LDL-C levels. A subgroup analysis of statin intolerant patients was also performed. RESULTS:=0]. CONCLUSION:Among patients who are statin intolerant or not receiving statins, PCSK9i use is associated with significantly lower LDL-C levels than after treatment with ezetimibe. PCSK9i might be useful in the prevention and treatment of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) in this subset of patients.

BACKGROUND: Healthcare systems rose to the challenges of COVID-19 by creating or expanding telehealth programs to ensure that patients could access care from home. Traditionally, though, physicians receive limited formal telemedicine training, which made preparedness for this transition uneven. We designed a survey for General Internal Medicine (GIM) physicians within our diverse health system to describe experiences with providing virtual patient care; with the ultimate goal of identifying actionable recommendations for health system leaders and medical educators.
METHOD(S): Surveys were sent to all faculty outpatient GIM physicians working at NYU Langone Health, NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue and Gouverneur, and the VA NY Harbor Health System (n=378) in May & June of 2020. Survey items consisted of Likert and open-ended questions on experience with televisits (13 items) and attitudes toward care (24 items). Specific questions covered barriers to communication over remote modalities.
RESULT(S): 195/378 (52%) responded to the survey. 96% of providers reported having problems establishing a connection from the patient's end while 84% reported difficultly establishing connection on the provider's end. Using interpreter services over the phone was also problematic for providers, with 38% reporting troubles. Regarding teamness, 35% of physicians found it difficult to share information with healthcare team members during virtual visits and 42% found it difficult to work collaboratively with team members, both when compared to in-person visits. When subdivided, 24% of private and 40% of public providers found info sharing more difficult (p<0.04). 31% of private providers and 45% of public found team collaboration more difficult (ns). Physicians also identified challenges in several domains including physical exams (97%), establishing relationships with new patients (74%), taking a good history (48%), and educating patients (35%). In thematic analysis of open-ended comments, themes emerged related to technological challenges, new systems issues, and new patient/provider communication experiences. Positives noted by physicians included easier communication with patients who often struggle with keeping in-person appointments, easier remote monitoring, and a more thorough understanding of patients' home lives.
CONCLUSION(S): Provider experience differences were rooted in the type of technology employed. Safety-net physicians conducted mostly telephonic visits while private outpatient physicians utilized video visits, despite both using the same brand of electronic medical record system. As we consider a new normal and prolonged community transmission of COVID-19, it is essential to establish telemedicine training, tools, and protocols that meet the needs of both patients and physicians across diverse settings. LEARNING OBJECTIVE #1: Describe challenges and barriers to effective communication and clinical skill utilization during televisits LEARNING OBJECTIVE #2: Conceptualize recommendations for educational curricula and health service improvement areas

The first Covid-19 patient was admitted to Montefiore Medical Center (MMC) on March 10, 2020. Soon thereafter there was a rapid and exponential surge of Covid-19 admissions to MMC that could have resulted in catastrophic consequences if MMC had been overwhelmed, as happened in Europe. To adjust to this crisis our institution, under the inspiring leadership of Dr. Philip Ozuah, President and CEO of Montefiore Medicine, adopted an "all hands on deck" approach, mobilizing our entire workforce to expand our units to accommodate the growing number of patients being admitted. Given that the internal medicine (IM) and ICU units are part of the department of medicine (DOM), the DOM was at the center of this mobilization. The DOM is the largest department at MMC and mobilizing it required careful planning, seamless teamwork, and strong leadership. To achieve that goal, we applied a framework that we designate the "3C framework," denoting Coordination, Communication, and Collaboration. In this report we describe the many initiatives the Montefiore Einstein DOM implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic using the 3C framework. These included establishing the Medicine Covid-19 Taskforce to lead our efforts, starting a daily newsletter for up-to-date communications, rapidly expanding the ICU and IM units, converting most specialty inpatient consults to eConsults, coordinating research studies, and more. The goal of this report is to serve as a guide on how the 3C framework helped us organize, mobilize, and energize the department of medicine effectively and efficiently during this unprecedented crisis.

BACKGROUND: Primary care (PC) residency training is a period that provides opportunity to develop skills required for independent practice. Unannounced Standardized Patients (USPs), or secret shoppers, are a controlled measure of clinical skills in actual practice. We sought to describe differences in core clinical communication skills over the last decade for PC residents.
METHOD(S): USPs presented as a new patient for a comprehensive visit while portraying one of six unique, outpatient cases (with either chronic or acute symptomology). Actors received extensive training to ensure accurate case portrayal. Each completed a post-visit, behaviorally anchored checklist (not, partly, or well done) in order to provide extensive, actionable feedback. A standardized checklist was used, consisting of individual items across domains including information gathering, relationship development, patient education, activation and satisfaction. Chronbach's alpha for domains ranged from 0.62- 0.89. Summary scores (mean % well done) were calculated by domain and compared by year for all learners and by PGY within year for the primary care (PC) residency. Differences were assessed using ANOVA. Case portrayal accuracy was ensured using audio tape review.
RESULT(S): 396 visits were conducted with PC residents in our urban, safetynet hospital system between 2013 and 2020. While looking across the 8 years, there was variation in mean scores per domain, though Kruskal-Wallis H test did not show any statistical difference. Relationship development and info gathering were the highest rated skills, at 75% and 76% well done, respectively, on average. Patient satisfaction and activation remained uniformly low across years, with scores averaging 36% and 39% well done, respectively. Multi-variate analysis showed no significant changes across domains by cohort (grad year) and PGY levels. Further, there were no significant differences by PGY year or cohort in terms of scoring using a two-way ANOVA, though there was a slight upward trend in relationship development skills since 2017 for all PGY levels. There were similar trends in most domains, with 2020 scores being higher than previous years. There were no significant differences across domains while looking at PGY1 learners only.
CONCLUSION(S): While there were no significant differences in scores, we can postulate that PC residents enter the residency with consistent foundational communication skills, possibly attributable to training. We elected to use the visit itself as the unit of analysis, which does not allow us to tease out differences in individual learners. We also have small sample sizes for earlier years of the USP visit program, which may hinder results. Regardless, results warrant further research in order to gain a more thorough understanding, possibly in relation to curricular trends. Further study will look at individual resident differences and ideally provide insight into curricular improvement areas. LEARNING OBJECTIVE #1: Describe assessment measures LEARNING OBJECTIVE #2: Explore clinical competency

OBJECTIVE:This population-based, matched cohort study aimed to evaluate utilization of health care services by mothers of children with major congenital anomalies (MCAs), compared to mothers of children without MCAs over a 20-year post-birth time horizon in Denmark. METHODS:Our analytic sample included mothers who gave birth to an infant with a MCA (n = 23,927) and a cohort of mothers matched to them by maternal age, parity and infant's year of birth (n = 239,076). Primary outcomes were period prevalence and mothers' quantity of health care utilization (primary, inpatient, outpatient, surgical, and psychiatric services) stratified by their child's age (i.e., ages 0-6 = before school, ages 7-13 = pre-school + primary education, and ages 14-18 = secondary education or higher). The secondary outcome measure was length of hospital stays. Outcome measures were adjusted for maternal age at delivery, parity, marital status, income quartile, level of education in the year prior to the index birth, previous spontaneous abortions, maternal pregnancy complications, maternal diabetes, hypertension, alcohol-related diseases, and maternal smoking. RESULTS:In both cohorts the majority of mothers were between 26 and 35 years of age, married, and employed, and 47% were primiparous. Mothers of infants with anomalies had greater utilization of outpatient, inpatient, surgical, and psychiatric services, compared with mothers in the matched cohort. Inpatient service utilization was greater in the exposed cohort up to 13 years after a child's birth, with the highest risk in the first six years after birth [adjusted risk ratio, 1.13; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.12-1.14], with a decrease over time. Regarding the quantity of health care utilization, the greatest difference between the two groups was in inpatient service utilization, with a 39% increased rate in the exposed cohort during the first six years after birth (adjusted rate ratio, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.37-1.42). During the first 6 years after birth, mothers of children with anomalies stayed a median of 6 days (interquartile range [IQR], 3-13) in hospital overall, while the comparison cohort stayed a median of 4 days (IQR, 2-7) in hospital overall. Rates of utilization of outpatient clinics (adjusted rate ratio, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.29-1.42), as well as inpatient (adjusted rate ratio, 1.77; 95% CI, 1.68-1.87), and surgical services (adjusted rate ratio, 1.33; 95% CI, 1.26-1.41) was higher in mothers of children with multiple-organ MCAs during 0 to 6 years after birth. Among mothers at the lowest income levels, utilization of psychiatric clinic services increased to 59% and when their child was 7 to 13 years of age (adjusted rate ratio, 1.59; 95% CI, 1.24-2.03). CONCLUSION:Mothers of infants with a major congenital anomaly had greater health care utilization across services. Health care utilization decreased over time or remained stable for outpatient, inpatient, and surgical care services, whereas psychiatric utilization increased for up to 13 years after an affected child's birth. Healthcare utilization was significantly elevated among mothers of children with multiple MCAs and among those at the lowest income levels.

Introduction:Instruction in implicit bias is becoming prevalent across the spectrum of medical training. Little education exists for preclinical students, and guidance for faculty to facilitate such education is minimal. To address these gaps, we designed and delivered a single session for incoming first-year medical students and developed a facilitator training program. Methods:One faculty member delivered a 1-hour, multimedia, interactive lecture to all first-year medical students. Students subsequently met in small groups with trained facilitators. Activities included reflection, guided debriefing, and strategy identification to become aware of when they might be making an assumption causing them to jump to a conclusion about someone. The program evaluation consisted of aggregated student strategies and facilitator feedback during postsession debriefs, both analyzed through thematic analysis. Results:We delivered instruction to 1,098 students. Student strategies resulted in three themes: (1) humility, (2) reflection, and (3) partnering. The postsession debriefs uncovered opportunities to enhance the session. Lessons learned included presenting material to an entire class at once, allowing students to engage in dynamic discussion in the small groups, eliminating anonymous polling in the small groups, and highlighting management of implicit bias as essential to professional development. Discussion:Our instructional design enabled first-year medical students to identify at least one strategy to use when implicit biases are activated. The large-group session was deliverable by one faculty member, and volunteers successfully facilitated small-group sessions after only one training session, making this model a feasible innovation to reach an entire medical school class at the same time.

A low serum bicarbonate (SB) level is predictive of adverse outcomes in kidney injury, infection, and aging. Because the liver plays an important role in acid-base homeostasis and lactic acid metabolism, we speculated that such a relationship would exist for patients with cirrhosis. To assess the prognostic value of admission SB on adverse hospital outcomes, clinical characteristics were extracted and analyzed from a large electronic health record system. Patients were categorized based on admission SB (mEq/L) into 7 groups based on the reference range (22-25) into mildly (18-21), moderately (14-17), and severely (<14) decreased groups and mildly (26-29), moderately (30-33), and severely (>30) increased groups, and the relationship of SB category with the frequency of complications (acute kidney injury/hepatorenal syndrome, portosystemic encephalopathy, gastrointestinal bleeding, ascites, and spontaneous bacterial peritonitis) and hospital metrics (length of stay [LOS], admission to an intensive care unit [ICU], and mortality) was assessed. A total of 2,693 patients were analyzed. Mean SB was 22.9 ± 4.5 mEq/L. SB was within the normal range (22-25 mEq/L) in 1,072 (39.8%) patients, and 955 patients (36%) had a low SB. As the SB category decreased, the incidence of complications progressively increased (p < 0.001). Increased MELD-Na score and low serum albumin also correlated with frequency of complications (p < 0.001). As the SB category decreased, LOS, ICU admission, and mortality progressively increased (p < 0.001). On multivariate analysis, the association of decreased SB with higher odds of complications, LOS, ICU admission, and mortality persisted. Conclusion. Low admission SB in patients with cirrhosis is associated with cirrhotic complications, longer LOS, increased ICU admissions, and increased hospital mortality.