Postgraduate medicine
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Postgraduate medicine · Mar 2022
Association of number of primary care physicians with preventable hospitalizations and premature deaths.
Primary care physicians (PCPs) may be the first providers for patients in a healthcare interaction, putting them in a unique position that may determine the health trajectory of a patient. Assessing whether PCPs improve the overall health of a community through reducing preventable hospital stays and premature deaths may provide necessary information towards improving the health outcomes at grassroots. ⋯ Higher number of PCPs in a county was associated with lower hospitalizations for preventable causes and lower premature deaths. Increasing PCPs may be an important metric to improve overall health in a community.
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Postgraduate medicine · Mar 2022
Case ReportsSevere COVID pneumonia and undetectable B cells after vaccination in patients previously treated with rituximab: a case series.
The risk of developing severe COVID-19 illness despite completing vaccination for patients who have previously received immunosuppressive therapy is unclear. ⋯ This case series brings attention to the limited humoral response to vaccines in patients treated with rituximab, highlights existing guidelines and their limitations, and raises future considerations about the potential benefits to testing vaccine responsiveness.
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Postgraduate medicine · Mar 2022
Patient preferences for mitral valve regurgitation treatment: a discrete choice experiment.
This study aimed to quantify patients' preferences for benefits and risks associated with treating degenerative mitral regurgitation (DMR) via open heart surgical repair versus a beating heart surgical approach. ⋯ This study of US adults with DMR provides quantitative measures of risk tolerance for tradeoffs related to repair by a beating heart approach relative to conventional open-heart surgery (standard of care). These results may inform DMR treatment choices from regulatory agencies, payers, clinicians, and patients considering a beating heart repair or treatments with similar attributes as potential new alternatives to conventional surgery.