Faculty Bibliography

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVE:Uncertainty is inherent to clinical practice and impacts diagnostic reasoning, patient safety, and trust. Despite its ubiquity, health professions education has not adequately prepared learners to communicate uncertainty to patients, families, and care teams. Training remains variable and unevenly assessed. The authors examined how uncertainty communication is taught and assessed across the health professions and identified gaps to inform curricular development and scholarship. METHOD/METHODS:The authors conducted a scoping review guided by Arksey and O'Malley's framework and reported according to PRISMA-ScR guidelines. Eligible studies included learners from any health profession and addressed communication of uncertainty with patients and/or clinicians. Commentaries and reviews were excluded. Searches were conducted in PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE, Scopus, ERIC, CINAHL, and MedEdPORTAL beginning in March 2024 through August 2026. Data were analyzed using inductive and deductive analysis informed by Han's uncertainty taxonomy. Study quality was assessed using the Medical Education Research Study Quality Instrument (MERSQI). RESULTS:Searches identified 18,810 records. After screening, 213 full-text articles were reviewed and 21 were included in the final analysis. Most were conducted in the U.S. and published after 2019. Learners were predominantly physicians-in-training, with most studies focused on undergraduate and graduate medical education; fewer addressed continuing education or interprofessional learners. Diagnostic uncertainty was the most frequently addressed uncertainty type. Educational approaches were primarily experiential, including simulation, standardized patients, OSCEs, and role-playing. Fewer than half of studies involved patients in design, development, or assessment. Twenty studies assessed learners using self-reported surveys, faculty observations, or standardized patient evaluations. MERSQI scores ranged from 6.5 to 15.5 (mean 10.4). No study evaluated clinical practice or patient outcomes. CONCLUSIONS:Educational approaches to uncertainty communication are emerging but remain limited in scope, learner populations, and outcome evaluation. Future work should prioritize interprofessional, longitudinal curricula and rigorous assessment strategies linking education to clinical and patient-level outcomes.

Injuries from falls and their sequelae represent a significant source of morbidity and mortality. This impact is predominantly felt by patients with pre-existing health conditions and poor health. For these patients, comorbidities, frailty, use of anticoagulation, and other factors result in the development of severe injuries after relatively low-impact falls. Many strategies exist to counter the negative effects of falls-both thinking about how to reduce the incidence of falls by engaging in fall prevention strategies and techniques for reducing trip hazards or finding ways to minimize the potential impact of falls on vulnerable populations. These efforts can be combined to create local and regional fall-prevention networks, which have been highly successful and effective in addressing fall risk. This publication summarizes the contents of an American Association for the Surgery of Trauma's Virtual Grand Rounds that highlighted the epidemiology of falls, the effects of falls, and strategies for countering these effects at individual and locoregional levels.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVE:Outpatient specialist palliative care (SPC) referral improves patient outcomes; however, it is unclear whether additional remote monitoring (RM) would provide further benefit. This pilot, parallel-group, single-blind, randomized clinical trial examined the within-group effect of monthly SPC alone or with additional weekly RM on symptom burden in patients with advanced cancer undergoing phase I therapies. METHODS:Eligibility criteria included advanced solid tumor diagnosis and moderate-to-high symptom burden (ie, Edmonton Symptom Assessment System [ESAS] score ≥4/10 for ≥1 symptom and Global Distress Score [GDS] ≥20/90) before starting phase I therapies. Patients were randomly assigned 1:1 to either monthly outpatient SPC visits alone or with additional RM, consisting of weekly phone calls and concurrent electronic ESAS assessments between monthly SPC visits. The primary outcome was within-group change in symptom burden (ESAS-GDS) from baseline to 2 weeks; secondary outcomes included within-group change from baseline in ESAS-GDS and health-related quality of life (HRQOL; measured by Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Spiritual Well-Being [FACIT-Sp]) over 12 weeks. RESULTS:= .02). CONCLUSION/CONCLUSIONS:Incorporating RM into SPC may improve symptoms and HRQOL beyond SPC alone for patients with moderate-to-high symptom burden. Our findings are considered preliminary and larger confirmatory trials are needed.

BACKGROUND & AIMS/OBJECTIVE:Adherence to guideline-based colonoscopy surveillance intervals remains suboptimal. Large language models show promise for automating interval assignment, but prior studies relied on proprietary models and have variably assessed generalizability. We developed and externally validated a clinical decision-support system that integrates locally deployable, open-source large language model-based variable extraction with a rules engine that encodes the 2020 United States Multi-Society Task Force guidelines. METHODS:We assembled development (n = 256), internal (n = 450), and external validation (n = 415) cohorts of colonoscopy-pathology dyads. We developed a 3-stage clinical decision-support system including: (1) large language model-based extraction of diagnosis-bearing sections from pathology reports; (2) large language model-based extraction of surveillance-relevant variables; and (3) deterministic assignment of surveillance intervals using United States Multi-Society Task Force logic. Seven open-source large language models (3.8-32B parameters) were benchmarked; the highest-performing model by macro-averaged F1 score was locked prior to validation. The primary outcome was guideline-concordant interval assignment (target, 90%); secondary outcomes included extraction performance and hallucination rate. RESULTS:The best-performing open-source model, Gemma-27B-Instruct (macro-averaged F1 score, 0.992), was locked. The clinical decision-support system achieved 94.0% guideline-concordant surveillance interval assignment in internal validation (95% confidence interval, 91.8%-96.0%; κ = 0.92; 95% confidence interval, 0.89-0.95) and 92.8% concordance in external validation (95% confidence interval, 90.1%-95.2%; κ = 0.88; 95% confidence interval, 0.84-0.91). Misclassifications were primarily due to adenoma miscounting and diagnostic biopsies misinterpreted as resections. Hallucination-related errors occurred in fewer than 1% of cases. CONCLUSIONS:We report an externally validated, hybrid large language model rules-based clinical decision-support system for colonoscopy surveillance that achieves >90% concordance while preserving transparency, auditability, and guideline traceability.

Achalasia is an uncommon primary esophageal motility disorder characterized by impaired lower esophageal sphincter relaxation and absent esophageal peristalsis. These changes result in progressive esophageal dilation and functional obstruction. Although classically associated with dysphagia and regurgitation, respiratory manifestations may predominate due to chronic aspiration of retained esophageal contents, which can obscure the underlying diagnosis and delay appropriate management. We report the case of a 20-year-old male with a history of asthma, gastroesophageal reflux disease, and gastroparesis who presented with one day of shortness of breath and productive cough, initially treated as an asthma exacerbation. Imaging performed to evaluate new-onset respiratory symptoms for one day prior to admission revealed a markedly dilated, fluid-filled esophagus and radiographic findings consistent with aspiration pneumonia. He was initially treated with one dose of 2 mg IV cefepime, then modified to Unasyn 3 mg and doxycycline 100 mg. Subsequent endoscopic evaluation confirmed severe esophageal dilation with retained food contents, supporting the diagnosis of advanced achalasia. This case highlights how achalasia may present primarily with pulmonary complications in young patients, particularly when coexisting respiratory disease is present. Delayed recognition can result in significant morbidity, including recurrent aspiration, malnutrition, and progressive esophageal dysfunction. Early consideration of esophageal motility disorders in patients with refractory respiratory symptoms and GI history is essential to prevent complications and guide timely therapeutic intervention.

Coccidioidomycosis rarely presents as a lung mass, hypereosinophilia, and disseminated pericarditis with pericardial effusion. Even rarer is a case that presents with the constellation of all these findings. We present a case of coccidioidomycosis in an immunocompetent young Jamaican male with all these features, set against an interesting epidemiological context of a likely exposure to coccidioidomycosis spores during an on-foot crossing of the Mexican border into Texas. His treatment course was complicated by declining liver and kidney function due to triazole antifungal therapy, necessitating titration of these doses to tolerable levels. This case highlights the importance of a detailed travel history in unraveling infectious disease diagnoses and underscores the need for high clinical suspicion for coccidioidomycosis, even in patients outside of known endemic regions.

Disseminated cutaneous herpes zoster (DCHZ), defined as lesions involving three or more dermatomes, is strongly associated with immunocompromised states and remains exceptionally rare in young immunocompetent adults. We present a case of DCHZ in a previously healthy 25-year-old male from Guatemala who presented with an eight-day history of a painful vesicular rash involving the right V2/V3, C3-C5, and T2-T3 dermatomes. Comprehensive evaluation for occult immunocompromise, including HIV testing, complete blood count, hemoglobin A1c, and urinalysis, was unrevealing. Treatment with high-dose intravenous acyclovir was complicated by acute kidney injury after four doses, with creatinine rising from 0.80 mg/dL to 2.60 mg/dL. Renal function improved following discontinuation of IV acyclovir and transition to oral valacyclovir. This case highlights the rarity of disseminated zoster in young immunocompetent adults and underscores the importance of targeted evaluation for underlying immunologic vulnerability and thorough investigation of acute kidney injury in the setting of DCHZ.

BACKGROUND:Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) accounts for 3% of solid malignancies, with clear cell RCC (ccRCC) comprising 80% of cases. Although 20%-30% of RCC cases are metastatic at diagnosis, cardiac metastases are rare. CASE SUMMARY/METHODS:A 65-year-old man with a remote history of ccRCC developed progressive dyspnea. Evaluation showed pulmonary nodules and a fluorodeoxyglucose-avid left ventricular mass. Surgical resection confirmed ccRCC. He received dual immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy and achieved a complete response. His treatment was complicated by pneumonitis, which resolved with corticosteroids. He remains in remission off therapy. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSIONS:This is a rare case of oligorecurrent RCC with cardiac metastasis without inferior vena cava involvement after prolonged remission. It emphasizes the complexity of decision-making because of extracardiac metastasis and treatment complications. TAKE-HOME MESSAGES/CONCLUSIONS:Cardiac metastasis is rare in oligorecurrent RCC, but relapse may occur even after prolonged latency periods. Appropriate treatment requires identification of other metastatic sites and a multidisciplinary approach.