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Physicians, clinicians, providers, healers, and now heroes, are some of the names we have been given throughout history. These titles bring together a universal concept in medicine that all human beings deserve compassion, understanding, and care. However, as health care providers we forget to show ourselves the same compassion we bestow upon others.

Self-compassion is a new way of relating to ourselves. As clinicians, we are trained investigators, delving deeper into what our patient is thinking and feeling. “Tell me more about that. How does that make you feel? That must have been (very painful/scary/frustrating).” These are a few statements we learned in patient interviewing to actively engage with patients, build rapport, solidify trust, validate their concerns, and ultimately obtain the information needed to diagnose and heal.

We know the importance of looking beyond the surface, as more often than not a deeper inspection reveals more to the story. We have uncovered cracks in the foundation, erosion of the roof, worn out siding, and a glimpse into the complexities that make up each individual. We look at our patients, loved ones, and the world with night-vision lenses to uncover what is deeper.

Clinicians are good at directing compassion toward others, but not as good at giving it to themselves.¹ Many health care providers may see self-compassion as soft, weak, selfish, or unnecessary. However, mindful self-compassion is a positive practice that opens a pathway for healing, personal growth, and protection against the negative consequences of self-judgment, isolation, anxiety, burnout, and depression.
 

What is self-compassion?

Kristin Neff, PhD, an associate professor in educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, was the first to academically define self-compassion. Self-compassion brings together three core elements – kindness, humanity, and mindfulness.² Self-compassion involves acting the same way toward yourself when you are having a difficult time as you would toward another person. Instead of mercilessly judging and criticizing yourself for self-perceived inadequacies or shortcomings, self-compassion allows you to ask yourself: “How can I give myself comfort and care in this moment?”

Mindfulness acknowledges a painful experience without resistance or judgment, while being present in the moment with things as they are. Self-compassion provides the emotional safety needed to mindfully open to our pain, disappointments, and defeats. Mindfulness and self-compassion both allow us to live with more acceptance toward ourselves and our lives. Mindfulness asks: “What am I experiencing right now?” Self-compassion asks: “What do I need right now?” When you feel compassion for yourself or another, you recognize that suffering, failure, and imperfection are all part of the shared human experience.
 

The physiology of self-compassion

When we practice self-compassion, we feel safe and cared for because there is a physiological pathway that explains this response. Self-compassion helps down-regulate the stress response (fight-flight-freeze). When we are triggered by a threat to our self-concept, we are likely to do one, two, or all of three things: we fight ourselves (self-criticism – often our first reaction when things go wrong), we flee from others (isolation), or we freeze (rumination).

Feeling threatened puts stress on the mind and body, and chronic stress leads to anxiety and depression, which hinders emotional and physical well-being. With self-criticism, we are both the attacker and the attacked. When we practice self-compassion, we are deactivating the threat-defense system and activating the care system, releasing oxytocin and endorphins, which reduce stress and increase feelings of safety and security.³
 

Why is self-compassion important to provider well-being?

Research has shown that individuals who are more self-compassionate tend to have greater happiness, life satisfaction, and motivation; better relationships and physical health; and less anxiety and depression. They also have the resilience needed to cope with stressful life events. The more we practice being kind and compassionate with ourselves, the more we’ll increase the habit of self-compassion, and extend compassion to our patients and loved ones in daily life.⁴

Why is self-compassion important? When we experience a setback at work or in life, we can become defensive, accuse others, or blame ourselves, especially when we are already under immense stress. These responses are not helpful, productive, or effective to the situation or our personal well-being. Although in the moment it may feel good to be reactive, it is a short-lived feeling that we trade for the longer-lasting effects of learning, resilience, and personal growth. Self-compassion teaches us to connect with our inner imperfections, and what makes us human, as to err is human.

To cultivate a habit of self-compassion itself, it is important to understand that self-compassion is a practice of goodwill, not good feelings. Self-compassion is aimed at the alleviation of suffering, but it does not erase any pain and suffering that does exist. The truth is, we can’t always control external forces – the events of 2020-2021 are a perfect example of this. As a result, we cannot utilize self-compassion as a practice to make our pain disappear or suppress strong emotions.

Instead, self-compassion helps us cultivate the resilience needed to mindfully acknowledge and accept a painful moment or experience, while reminding us to embrace ourselves with kindness and care in response. This builds our internal foundation with support, love, and self-care, while providing the optimal conditions for growth, resilience, and transformation
 

Self-compassion and the backdraft phenomenon

When you start the practice of self-compassion, you may experience backdraft, a phenomenon in which pain initially increases.⁵ Backdraft is similar to the stages of grief or when the flames of a burning house become larger when a door is opened and oxygen surges in. Practicing self-compassion may cause a tidal wave of emotions to come to the forefront, but it is likely that if this happens, it needs to happen.

Imagine yourself in a room with two versions of yourself. To the left is your best self that you present to the world, standing tall, organized, well kept, and without any noticeable imperfections. To the right, is the deepest part of your being, laying on the floor, filled with raw emotions – sadness, fear, anger, and love. This version of yourself is vulnerable, open, honest, and imperfect. When looking at each version of yourself, which one is the real you? The right? The left? Maybe it’s both?

Imagine what would happen if you walked over to the version of yourself on the right, sat down, and provided it comfort, and embraced yourself with love and kindness. What would happen if you gave that version of yourself a hug? Seeing your true self, with all the layers peeled away, at the very core of your being, vulnerable, and possibly broken, is a powerful and gut-wrenching experience. It may hurt at first, but once we embrace our own pain and suffering, that is where mindfulness and self-compassion intersect to begin the path to healing. It takes more strength and courage to be the version of ourselves on the right than the version on the left.
 

What is not self compassion?

Self-compassion is not self-pity, weakness, self-esteem, or selfishness. When individuals feel self-pity, they become immersed in their own problems and feel that they are the only ones in the world who are suffering. Self-compassion makes us more willing to accept, experience, and acknowledge difficult feelings with kindness. This paradoxically helps us process and let go of these feelings without long-term negative consequences, and with a better ability to recognize the suffering of others.

Self-compassion allows us to be our own inner ally and strengthens our ability to cope successfully when life gets hard. Self-compassion will not make you weak and vulnerable. It is a reliable source of inner strength that enhances resilience when faced with difficulties. Research shows self-compassionate people are better able to cope with tough situations like divorce, trauma, and crisis.

Self-compassion and self-esteem are important to well-being; however, they are not the same. Self-esteem refers to a judgment or evaluation of our sense of self-worth, perceived value, or how much we like ourselves. While self-compassion relates to the changing landscape of who we are with kindness and acceptance – especially in times when we feel useless, inadequate, or hopeless – self-esteem allows for greater self-clarity, independent of external circumstances, and acknowledges that all human beings deserve compassion and understanding, not because they possess certain traits or have a certain perceive valued, but because we share the human experience and the human condition of imperfection. Finally, self-compassion is not selfish, as practicing it helps people sustain the act of caring for others and decrease caregiver burnout.^6,7
 

Strategies to practice self-compassion

There are many ways to practice self-compassion. Here are a few experiences created by Dr. Neff, a leader in the field.⁸

Experience 1: How would you treat a friend?

How do you think things might change if you responded to yourself in the same way you typically respond to a close friend when he or she is suffering? Why not try treating yourself like a good friend and see what happens.

Take out a sheet of paper and write down your answer to the following questions:

• First, think about times when a close friend feels really bad about him or herself or is really struggling in some way. How would you respond to your friend in this situation (especially when you’re at your best)? Write down what you typically do and say and note the tone in which you typically talk to your friends.
• Second, think about times when you feel bad about yourself or are struggling. How do you typically respond to yourself in these situations? Write down what you typically do and say, and note the tone in which you typically talk to your friends.
• Did you notice a difference? If so, ask yourself why. What factors or fears come into play that lead you to treat yourself and others so differently?
• Please write down how you think things might change if you responded to yourself in the same way you typically respond to a close friend when you’re suffering.

Experience 2: Take a self-compassion break

This practice can be used any time of day or night, with others or alone. It will help you remember to evoke the three aspects of self-compassion when you need it most.

Think of a situation in your life that is difficult, that is causing you stress. Call the situation to mind, and if you feel comfortable, allow yourself to experience these feelings and emotions, without judgment and without altering them to what you think they should be.

• Say to yourself one of the following: “This is a difficult moment,” “This is a moment of suffering,” “This is stress,” “This hurts,” or “Ouch.” Doing this step is “mindfulness”: A willingness to observe negative thoughts and emotions with openness and clarity, so that they are held in mindful awareness, without judgment.
• Find your equilibrium of observation with thoughts and feelings. Try not to suppress or deny them and try not to get caught up and swept away by them.
• Remind yourself of the shared human experience. Recognize that suffering and personal difficulty is something that we all go through rather than being something that happens to “me” alone. Remind yourself that “other people feel this way,” “I’m not alone,” and “we all have struggles in life.”
• Be kind to yourself and ask: “What do I need to hear right now to express kindness to myself?” Is there a phrase that speaks to you in your particular situation? For example: “May I give myself the compassion that I need; may I learn to accept myself as I am; may I forgive myself; may I be strong; may I be patient.” There is no wrong answer.

Exercise 3: Explore self-compassion through writing

Everybody has something about themselves that they don’t like; something that causes them to feel shame, to feel insecure, or not “good enough.” This exercise will help you write a letter to yourself about this issue from a place of acceptance and compassion. It can feel uncomfortable at first, but it gets easier with practice.

• Write about an issue you have that makes you feel inadequate or bad about yourself (physical appearance, work, or relationship issue) What emotions do you experience when you think about this aspect of yourself? Try to only feel your emotions exactly as they are – no more, no less – and then write about them.
• Write a letter as if you were talking to a dearly beloved friend who was struggling with the same concerns as you and has the same strengths and weaknesses as you. How would you convey deep compassion, especially for the pain you feel when they judge themselves so harshly? What would you write to your friend to remind them that they are only human, that all people have both strengths and weaknesses? As you write, try to infuse your letter with a strong sense of acceptance, kindness, caring, and desire for their health and happiness.
• After writing the letter, put it aside for a little while. Then come back and read it again, really letting the words sink in. Feel the compassion as it pours into you, soothing and comforting you. Love, connection, and acceptance are a part of your human right. To claim them you need only look within yourself.

Experience 4: Taking care of the caregiver

We work in the very stressful time of the COVID pandemic. As medical providers, we are caregivers to our patients and our families. Yet, we do not give ourselves time to rest, recover, and recharge. Remember, to care for others, you cannot pour from an empty cup.

• Give yourself permission to meet your own needs, recognizing that this will not only enhance your quality of life, it will also enhance your ability to be there for those that rely on you. Our time is limited but self-care can occur both at work and outside of work.
• When you are “off the clock,” be off the clock! Turn off notifications, don’t check email, and be present in your personal lives. If you are constantly answering patient calls or nursing questions until 10 p.m., that means your health care system is in need of an upgrade, as you need the appropriate coverage to give you time to care for yourself, just as well as you care for your patients.
• While at work you can practice self-care. Take 2 minutes to practice relaxation breathing. Take 1 minute to show yourself or another person gratitude. Take 5 minutes before you start writing your notes for the day to listen to relaxing music or a mindful podcast. Take 3 minutes to share three good things that happened in the day with your family or colleagues. Take 5-10 minutes to do chair yoga. Take a self-compassion break.
• Implement a 5-minute wellness break into your group’s daily function with some of the previous mentioned examples. This will allow you to care for and nurture yourself, while also caring for and nurturing others in an environment that cultivates your wellness goals.

As a hospitalist, I can attest that I did not show myself self-compassion nearly as often as I showed compassion to others. I am my own worst critic and my training taught me to suffer in silence, and not seek out others who are experiencing the same thing for fear of being perceived as weak, inadequate, or flawed.

This false notion that we need to always be tough, strong, and without emotion in order to be taken seriously, to advance, or be held in high regard is rubbish and only perpetuated by accepting it. In order to change the culture of medicine, we have to change the way we think and behave. I have practiced self-compassion exercises and it has enhanced my perspective to see that many of us are going through varying degrees of the same thing. It has shown me the positive effects on my inner being and my life. If you are ready to try something new that will benefit your psychological and emotional well-being, and help you through pain, suffering, struggles, and crisis, you have nothing to lose. Be the change, and show yourself self-compassion.

In summary, self-compassion is an attitude of warmth, curiosity, connection, and care. Learning to become more self-compassionate is a process of moving from striving to change our experience and ourselves toward embracing who we are already.⁹ The practice of self-compassion is giving ourselves what we need in the moment. Even if we are not ready, or it is too painful to fully accept or embrace, we can still plant the seeds that will, with time and patience, grow and bloom.

When we are mindful of our struggles, when we respond to ourselves with compassion, kindness, and give ourselves support in times of difficulty, we learn to embrace ourselves and our lives, our inner and outer imperfections, and provide ourselves with the strength needed to thrive in the most precarious and difficult situations. With self-compassion, we give the world the best of us, instead of what is left of us.

Dr. Williams is vice president of the Hampton Roads chapter of the Society of Hospital Medicine. She is a hospitalist at Sentara Careplex Hospital in Hampton, Va., where she also serves as vice president of the medical executive committee.

References

1. Sanchez-Reilly S et al. Caring for oneself to care for others: Physicians and their self-care. J Community Support Oncol. 2013;11(2):75-81. doi: 10.12788/j.suponc.0003.

2. Neff K. Self-Compassion: An Alternative Conceptualization of a Healthy Attitude Toward Oneself. Self Identity. 2010;2(2):85-101. doi: 10.1080/15298860309032.

3. Neff K et al. The forest and the trees: Examining the association of self-compassion and its positive and negative components with psychological functioning. Self Identity. 2018;17(6):627-45. doi: 10.1080/15298868.2018.1436587.

4. Zessin U et al. The relationship between self-compassion and well-being: A meta-analysis. Appl Psychol Health Well-Being. 2015;7(3):340-64. doi: 10.1111/aphw.12051.

5. Warren R et al. Self-criticism and self-compassion: Risk and resilience. Current Psychiatry. 2016 Dec;15(12):18-21,24-28,32.

6. Neff K. The Five Myths of Self-Compassion. Greater Good Magazine. 2015 Sep 30. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_five_myths_of_self_compassion.

7. Neff KD and Germer CK. A pilot study and randomized controlled trial of the mindful self-compassion program. J Clin Psychol. 2013 Jan;69(1):28-44. doi: 10.1002/jclp.21923.

8. Neff K. Self-Compassion Guided Meditations and Exercises. https://self-compassion.org/category/exercises/#exercises.

9. Germer C and Neff KD. Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC), in “The handbook of mindfulness-based programs.” (London: Routledge, 2019, pp. 357-67).

Physicians, clinicians, providers, healers, and now heroes, are some of the names we have been given throughout history. These titles bring together a universal concept in medicine that all human beings deserve compassion, understanding, and care. However, as health care providers we forget to show ourselves the same compassion we bestow upon others.

Self-compassion is a new way of relating to ourselves. As clinicians, we are trained investigators, delving deeper into what our patient is thinking and feeling. “Tell me more about that. How does that make you feel? That must have been (very painful/scary/frustrating).” These are a few statements we learned in patient interviewing to actively engage with patients, build rapport, solidify trust, validate their concerns, and ultimately obtain the information needed to diagnose and heal.

We know the importance of looking beyond the surface, as more often than not a deeper inspection reveals more to the story. We have uncovered cracks in the foundation, erosion of the roof, worn out siding, and a glimpse into the complexities that make up each individual. We look at our patients, loved ones, and the world with night-vision lenses to uncover what is deeper.

Clinicians are good at directing compassion toward others, but not as good at giving it to themselves.¹ Many health care providers may see self-compassion as soft, weak, selfish, or unnecessary. However, mindful self-compassion is a positive practice that opens a pathway for healing, personal growth, and protection against the negative consequences of self-judgment, isolation, anxiety, burnout, and depression.
 

What is self-compassion?

Kristin Neff, PhD, an associate professor in educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, was the first to academically define self-compassion. Self-compassion brings together three core elements – kindness, humanity, and mindfulness.² Self-compassion involves acting the same way toward yourself when you are having a difficult time as you would toward another person. Instead of mercilessly judging and criticizing yourself for self-perceived inadequacies or shortcomings, self-compassion allows you to ask yourself: “How can I give myself comfort and care in this moment?”

Mindfulness acknowledges a painful experience without resistance or judgment, while being present in the moment with things as they are. Self-compassion provides the emotional safety needed to mindfully open to our pain, disappointments, and defeats. Mindfulness and self-compassion both allow us to live with more acceptance toward ourselves and our lives. Mindfulness asks: “What am I experiencing right now?” Self-compassion asks: “What do I need right now?” When you feel compassion for yourself or another, you recognize that suffering, failure, and imperfection are all part of the shared human experience.
 

The physiology of self-compassion

When we practice self-compassion, we feel safe and cared for because there is a physiological pathway that explains this response. Self-compassion helps down-regulate the stress response (fight-flight-freeze). When we are triggered by a threat to our self-concept, we are likely to do one, two, or all of three things: we fight ourselves (self-criticism – often our first reaction when things go wrong), we flee from others (isolation), or we freeze (rumination).

Feeling threatened puts stress on the mind and body, and chronic stress leads to anxiety and depression, which hinders emotional and physical well-being. With self-criticism, we are both the attacker and the attacked. When we practice self-compassion, we are deactivating the threat-defense system and activating the care system, releasing oxytocin and endorphins, which reduce stress and increase feelings of safety and security.³
 

Why is self-compassion important to provider well-being?

Research has shown that individuals who are more self-compassionate tend to have greater happiness, life satisfaction, and motivation; better relationships and physical health; and less anxiety and depression. They also have the resilience needed to cope with stressful life events. The more we practice being kind and compassionate with ourselves, the more we’ll increase the habit of self-compassion, and extend compassion to our patients and loved ones in daily life.⁴

Why is self-compassion important? When we experience a setback at work or in life, we can become defensive, accuse others, or blame ourselves, especially when we are already under immense stress. These responses are not helpful, productive, or effective to the situation or our personal well-being. Although in the moment it may feel good to be reactive, it is a short-lived feeling that we trade for the longer-lasting effects of learning, resilience, and personal growth. Self-compassion teaches us to connect with our inner imperfections, and what makes us human, as to err is human.

To cultivate a habit of self-compassion itself, it is important to understand that self-compassion is a practice of goodwill, not good feelings. Self-compassion is aimed at the alleviation of suffering, but it does not erase any pain and suffering that does exist. The truth is, we can’t always control external forces – the events of 2020-2021 are a perfect example of this. As a result, we cannot utilize self-compassion as a practice to make our pain disappear or suppress strong emotions.

Instead, self-compassion helps us cultivate the resilience needed to mindfully acknowledge and accept a painful moment or experience, while reminding us to embrace ourselves with kindness and care in response. This builds our internal foundation with support, love, and self-care, while providing the optimal conditions for growth, resilience, and transformation
 

Self-compassion and the backdraft phenomenon

When you start the practice of self-compassion, you may experience backdraft, a phenomenon in which pain initially increases.⁵ Backdraft is similar to the stages of grief or when the flames of a burning house become larger when a door is opened and oxygen surges in. Practicing self-compassion may cause a tidal wave of emotions to come to the forefront, but it is likely that if this happens, it needs to happen.

Imagine yourself in a room with two versions of yourself. To the left is your best self that you present to the world, standing tall, organized, well kept, and without any noticeable imperfections. To the right, is the deepest part of your being, laying on the floor, filled with raw emotions – sadness, fear, anger, and love. This version of yourself is vulnerable, open, honest, and imperfect. When looking at each version of yourself, which one is the real you? The right? The left? Maybe it’s both?

Imagine what would happen if you walked over to the version of yourself on the right, sat down, and provided it comfort, and embraced yourself with love and kindness. What would happen if you gave that version of yourself a hug? Seeing your true self, with all the layers peeled away, at the very core of your being, vulnerable, and possibly broken, is a powerful and gut-wrenching experience. It may hurt at first, but once we embrace our own pain and suffering, that is where mindfulness and self-compassion intersect to begin the path to healing. It takes more strength and courage to be the version of ourselves on the right than the version on the left.
 

What is not self compassion?

Self-compassion is not self-pity, weakness, self-esteem, or selfishness. When individuals feel self-pity, they become immersed in their own problems and feel that they are the only ones in the world who are suffering. Self-compassion makes us more willing to accept, experience, and acknowledge difficult feelings with kindness. This paradoxically helps us process and let go of these feelings without long-term negative consequences, and with a better ability to recognize the suffering of others.

Self-compassion allows us to be our own inner ally and strengthens our ability to cope successfully when life gets hard. Self-compassion will not make you weak and vulnerable. It is a reliable source of inner strength that enhances resilience when faced with difficulties. Research shows self-compassionate people are better able to cope with tough situations like divorce, trauma, and crisis.

Self-compassion and self-esteem are important to well-being; however, they are not the same. Self-esteem refers to a judgment or evaluation of our sense of self-worth, perceived value, or how much we like ourselves. While self-compassion relates to the changing landscape of who we are with kindness and acceptance – especially in times when we feel useless, inadequate, or hopeless – self-esteem allows for greater self-clarity, independent of external circumstances, and acknowledges that all human beings deserve compassion and understanding, not because they possess certain traits or have a certain perceive valued, but because we share the human experience and the human condition of imperfection. Finally, self-compassion is not selfish, as practicing it helps people sustain the act of caring for others and decrease caregiver burnout.^6,7
 

Strategies to practice self-compassion

There are many ways to practice self-compassion. Here are a few experiences created by Dr. Neff, a leader in the field.⁸

Experience 1: How would you treat a friend?

How do you think things might change if you responded to yourself in the same way you typically respond to a close friend when he or she is suffering? Why not try treating yourself like a good friend and see what happens.

Take out a sheet of paper and write down your answer to the following questions:

• First, think about times when a close friend feels really bad about him or herself or is really struggling in some way. How would you respond to your friend in this situation (especially when you’re at your best)? Write down what you typically do and say and note the tone in which you typically talk to your friends.
• Second, think about times when you feel bad about yourself or are struggling. How do you typically respond to yourself in these situations? Write down what you typically do and say, and note the tone in which you typically talk to your friends.
• Did you notice a difference? If so, ask yourself why. What factors or fears come into play that lead you to treat yourself and others so differently?
• Please write down how you think things might change if you responded to yourself in the same way you typically respond to a close friend when you’re suffering.

Experience 2: Take a self-compassion break

This practice can be used any time of day or night, with others or alone. It will help you remember to evoke the three aspects of self-compassion when you need it most.

Think of a situation in your life that is difficult, that is causing you stress. Call the situation to mind, and if you feel comfortable, allow yourself to experience these feelings and emotions, without judgment and without altering them to what you think they should be.

• Say to yourself one of the following: “This is a difficult moment,” “This is a moment of suffering,” “This is stress,” “This hurts,” or “Ouch.” Doing this step is “mindfulness”: A willingness to observe negative thoughts and emotions with openness and clarity, so that they are held in mindful awareness, without judgment.
• Find your equilibrium of observation with thoughts and feelings. Try not to suppress or deny them and try not to get caught up and swept away by them.
• Remind yourself of the shared human experience. Recognize that suffering and personal difficulty is something that we all go through rather than being something that happens to “me” alone. Remind yourself that “other people feel this way,” “I’m not alone,” and “we all have struggles in life.”
• Be kind to yourself and ask: “What do I need to hear right now to express kindness to myself?” Is there a phrase that speaks to you in your particular situation? For example: “May I give myself the compassion that I need; may I learn to accept myself as I am; may I forgive myself; may I be strong; may I be patient.” There is no wrong answer.

Exercise 3: Explore self-compassion through writing

Everybody has something about themselves that they don’t like; something that causes them to feel shame, to feel insecure, or not “good enough.” This exercise will help you write a letter to yourself about this issue from a place of acceptance and compassion. It can feel uncomfortable at first, but it gets easier with practice.

• Write about an issue you have that makes you feel inadequate or bad about yourself (physical appearance, work, or relationship issue) What emotions do you experience when you think about this aspect of yourself? Try to only feel your emotions exactly as they are – no more, no less – and then write about them.
• Write a letter as if you were talking to a dearly beloved friend who was struggling with the same concerns as you and has the same strengths and weaknesses as you. How would you convey deep compassion, especially for the pain you feel when they judge themselves so harshly? What would you write to your friend to remind them that they are only human, that all people have both strengths and weaknesses? As you write, try to infuse your letter with a strong sense of acceptance, kindness, caring, and desire for their health and happiness.
• After writing the letter, put it aside for a little while. Then come back and read it again, really letting the words sink in. Feel the compassion as it pours into you, soothing and comforting you. Love, connection, and acceptance are a part of your human right. To claim them you need only look within yourself.

Experience 4: Taking care of the caregiver

We work in the very stressful time of the COVID pandemic. As medical providers, we are caregivers to our patients and our families. Yet, we do not give ourselves time to rest, recover, and recharge. Remember, to care for others, you cannot pour from an empty cup.

• Give yourself permission to meet your own needs, recognizing that this will not only enhance your quality of life, it will also enhance your ability to be there for those that rely on you. Our time is limited but self-care can occur both at work and outside of work.
• When you are “off the clock,” be off the clock! Turn off notifications, don’t check email, and be present in your personal lives. If you are constantly answering patient calls or nursing questions until 10 p.m., that means your health care system is in need of an upgrade, as you need the appropriate coverage to give you time to care for yourself, just as well as you care for your patients.
• While at work you can practice self-care. Take 2 minutes to practice relaxation breathing. Take 1 minute to show yourself or another person gratitude. Take 5 minutes before you start writing your notes for the day to listen to relaxing music or a mindful podcast. Take 3 minutes to share three good things that happened in the day with your family or colleagues. Take 5-10 minutes to do chair yoga. Take a self-compassion break.
• Implement a 5-minute wellness break into your group’s daily function with some of the previous mentioned examples. This will allow you to care for and nurture yourself, while also caring for and nurturing others in an environment that cultivates your wellness goals.

As a hospitalist, I can attest that I did not show myself self-compassion nearly as often as I showed compassion to others. I am my own worst critic and my training taught me to suffer in silence, and not seek out others who are experiencing the same thing for fear of being perceived as weak, inadequate, or flawed.

This false notion that we need to always be tough, strong, and without emotion in order to be taken seriously, to advance, or be held in high regard is rubbish and only perpetuated by accepting it. In order to change the culture of medicine, we have to change the way we think and behave. I have practiced self-compassion exercises and it has enhanced my perspective to see that many of us are going through varying degrees of the same thing. It has shown me the positive effects on my inner being and my life. If you are ready to try something new that will benefit your psychological and emotional well-being, and help you through pain, suffering, struggles, and crisis, you have nothing to lose. Be the change, and show yourself self-compassion.

In summary, self-compassion is an attitude of warmth, curiosity, connection, and care. Learning to become more self-compassionate is a process of moving from striving to change our experience and ourselves toward embracing who we are already.⁹ The practice of self-compassion is giving ourselves what we need in the moment. Even if we are not ready, or it is too painful to fully accept or embrace, we can still plant the seeds that will, with time and patience, grow and bloom.

When we are mindful of our struggles, when we respond to ourselves with compassion, kindness, and give ourselves support in times of difficulty, we learn to embrace ourselves and our lives, our inner and outer imperfections, and provide ourselves with the strength needed to thrive in the most precarious and difficult situations. With self-compassion, we give the world the best of us, instead of what is left of us.

Dr. Williams is vice president of the Hampton Roads chapter of the Society of Hospital Medicine. She is a hospitalist at Sentara Careplex Hospital in Hampton, Va., where she also serves as vice president of the medical executive committee.

References

1. Sanchez-Reilly S et al. Caring for oneself to care for others: Physicians and their self-care. J Community Support Oncol. 2013;11(2):75-81. doi: 10.12788/j.suponc.0003.

2. Neff K. Self-Compassion: An Alternative Conceptualization of a Healthy Attitude Toward Oneself. Self Identity. 2010;2(2):85-101. doi: 10.1080/15298860309032.

3. Neff K et al. The forest and the trees: Examining the association of self-compassion and its positive and negative components with psychological functioning. Self Identity. 2018;17(6):627-45. doi: 10.1080/15298868.2018.1436587.

4. Zessin U et al. The relationship between self-compassion and well-being: A meta-analysis. Appl Psychol Health Well-Being. 2015;7(3):340-64. doi: 10.1111/aphw.12051.

5. Warren R et al. Self-criticism and self-compassion: Risk and resilience. Current Psychiatry. 2016 Dec;15(12):18-21,24-28,32.

6. Neff K. The Five Myths of Self-Compassion. Greater Good Magazine. 2015 Sep 30. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_five_myths_of_self_compassion.

7. Neff KD and Germer CK. A pilot study and randomized controlled trial of the mindful self-compassion program. J Clin Psychol. 2013 Jan;69(1):28-44. doi: 10.1002/jclp.21923.

8. Neff K. Self-Compassion Guided Meditations and Exercises. https://self-compassion.org/category/exercises/#exercises.

9. Germer C and Neff KD. Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC), in “The handbook of mindfulness-based programs.” (London: Routledge, 2019, pp. 357-67).

Physicians, clinicians, providers, healers, and now heroes, are some of the names we have been given throughout history. These titles bring together a universal concept in medicine that all human beings deserve compassion, understanding, and care. However, as health care providers we forget to show ourselves the same compassion we bestow upon others.

Self-compassion is a new way of relating to ourselves. As clinicians, we are trained investigators, delving deeper into what our patient is thinking and feeling. “Tell me more about that. How does that make you feel? That must have been (very painful/scary/frustrating).” These are a few statements we learned in patient interviewing to actively engage with patients, build rapport, solidify trust, validate their concerns, and ultimately obtain the information needed to diagnose and heal.

We know the importance of looking beyond the surface, as more often than not a deeper inspection reveals more to the story. We have uncovered cracks in the foundation, erosion of the roof, worn out siding, and a glimpse into the complexities that make up each individual. We look at our patients, loved ones, and the world with night-vision lenses to uncover what is deeper.

Clinicians are good at directing compassion toward others, but not as good at giving it to themselves.¹ Many health care providers may see self-compassion as soft, weak, selfish, or unnecessary. However, mindful self-compassion is a positive practice that opens a pathway for healing, personal growth, and protection against the negative consequences of self-judgment, isolation, anxiety, burnout, and depression.
 

What is self-compassion?

Kristin Neff, PhD, an associate professor in educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, was the first to academically define self-compassion. Self-compassion brings together three core elements – kindness, humanity, and mindfulness.² Self-compassion involves acting the same way toward yourself when you are having a difficult time as you would toward another person. Instead of mercilessly judging and criticizing yourself for self-perceived inadequacies or shortcomings, self-compassion allows you to ask yourself: “How can I give myself comfort and care in this moment?”

Mindfulness acknowledges a painful experience without resistance or judgment, while being present in the moment with things as they are. Self-compassion provides the emotional safety needed to mindfully open to our pain, disappointments, and defeats. Mindfulness and self-compassion both allow us to live with more acceptance toward ourselves and our lives. Mindfulness asks: “What am I experiencing right now?” Self-compassion asks: “What do I need right now?” When you feel compassion for yourself or another, you recognize that suffering, failure, and imperfection are all part of the shared human experience.
 

The physiology of self-compassion

When we practice self-compassion, we feel safe and cared for because there is a physiological pathway that explains this response. Self-compassion helps down-regulate the stress response (fight-flight-freeze). When we are triggered by a threat to our self-concept, we are likely to do one, two, or all of three things: we fight ourselves (self-criticism – often our first reaction when things go wrong), we flee from others (isolation), or we freeze (rumination).

Feeling threatened puts stress on the mind and body, and chronic stress leads to anxiety and depression, which hinders emotional and physical well-being. With self-criticism, we are both the attacker and the attacked. When we practice self-compassion, we are deactivating the threat-defense system and activating the care system, releasing oxytocin and endorphins, which reduce stress and increase feelings of safety and security.³
 

Why is self-compassion important to provider well-being?

Research has shown that individuals who are more self-compassionate tend to have greater happiness, life satisfaction, and motivation; better relationships and physical health; and less anxiety and depression. They also have the resilience needed to cope with stressful life events. The more we practice being kind and compassionate with ourselves, the more we’ll increase the habit of self-compassion, and extend compassion to our patients and loved ones in daily life.⁴

Why is self-compassion important? When we experience a setback at work or in life, we can become defensive, accuse others, or blame ourselves, especially when we are already under immense stress. These responses are not helpful, productive, or effective to the situation or our personal well-being. Although in the moment it may feel good to be reactive, it is a short-lived feeling that we trade for the longer-lasting effects of learning, resilience, and personal growth. Self-compassion teaches us to connect with our inner imperfections, and what makes us human, as to err is human.

To cultivate a habit of self-compassion itself, it is important to understand that self-compassion is a practice of goodwill, not good feelings. Self-compassion is aimed at the alleviation of suffering, but it does not erase any pain and suffering that does exist. The truth is, we can’t always control external forces – the events of 2020-2021 are a perfect example of this. As a result, we cannot utilize self-compassion as a practice to make our pain disappear or suppress strong emotions.

Instead, self-compassion helps us cultivate the resilience needed to mindfully acknowledge and accept a painful moment or experience, while reminding us to embrace ourselves with kindness and care in response. This builds our internal foundation with support, love, and self-care, while providing the optimal conditions for growth, resilience, and transformation
 

Self-compassion and the backdraft phenomenon

When you start the practice of self-compassion, you may experience backdraft, a phenomenon in which pain initially increases.⁵ Backdraft is similar to the stages of grief or when the flames of a burning house become larger when a door is opened and oxygen surges in. Practicing self-compassion may cause a tidal wave of emotions to come to the forefront, but it is likely that if this happens, it needs to happen.

Imagine yourself in a room with two versions of yourself. To the left is your best self that you present to the world, standing tall, organized, well kept, and without any noticeable imperfections. To the right, is the deepest part of your being, laying on the floor, filled with raw emotions – sadness, fear, anger, and love. This version of yourself is vulnerable, open, honest, and imperfect. When looking at each version of yourself, which one is the real you? The right? The left? Maybe it’s both?

Imagine what would happen if you walked over to the version of yourself on the right, sat down, and provided it comfort, and embraced yourself with love and kindness. What would happen if you gave that version of yourself a hug? Seeing your true self, with all the layers peeled away, at the very core of your being, vulnerable, and possibly broken, is a powerful and gut-wrenching experience. It may hurt at first, but once we embrace our own pain and suffering, that is where mindfulness and self-compassion intersect to begin the path to healing. It takes more strength and courage to be the version of ourselves on the right than the version on the left.
 

What is not self compassion?

Self-compassion is not self-pity, weakness, self-esteem, or selfishness. When individuals feel self-pity, they become immersed in their own problems and feel that they are the only ones in the world who are suffering. Self-compassion makes us more willing to accept, experience, and acknowledge difficult feelings with kindness. This paradoxically helps us process and let go of these feelings without long-term negative consequences, and with a better ability to recognize the suffering of others.

Self-compassion allows us to be our own inner ally and strengthens our ability to cope successfully when life gets hard. Self-compassion will not make you weak and vulnerable. It is a reliable source of inner strength that enhances resilience when faced with difficulties. Research shows self-compassionate people are better able to cope with tough situations like divorce, trauma, and crisis.

Self-compassion and self-esteem are important to well-being; however, they are not the same. Self-esteem refers to a judgment or evaluation of our sense of self-worth, perceived value, or how much we like ourselves. While self-compassion relates to the changing landscape of who we are with kindness and acceptance – especially in times when we feel useless, inadequate, or hopeless – self-esteem allows for greater self-clarity, independent of external circumstances, and acknowledges that all human beings deserve compassion and understanding, not because they possess certain traits or have a certain perceive valued, but because we share the human experience and the human condition of imperfection. Finally, self-compassion is not selfish, as practicing it helps people sustain the act of caring for others and decrease caregiver burnout.^6,7
 

Strategies to practice self-compassion

There are many ways to practice self-compassion. Here are a few experiences created by Dr. Neff, a leader in the field.⁸

Experience 1: How would you treat a friend?

How do you think things might change if you responded to yourself in the same way you typically respond to a close friend when he or she is suffering? Why not try treating yourself like a good friend and see what happens.

Take out a sheet of paper and write down your answer to the following questions:

• First, think about times when a close friend feels really bad about him or herself or is really struggling in some way. How would you respond to your friend in this situation (especially when you’re at your best)? Write down what you typically do and say and note the tone in which you typically talk to your friends.
• Second, think about times when you feel bad about yourself or are struggling. How do you typically respond to yourself in these situations? Write down what you typically do and say, and note the tone in which you typically talk to your friends.
• Did you notice a difference? If so, ask yourself why. What factors or fears come into play that lead you to treat yourself and others so differently?
• Please write down how you think things might change if you responded to yourself in the same way you typically respond to a close friend when you’re suffering.

Experience 2: Take a self-compassion break

This practice can be used any time of day or night, with others or alone. It will help you remember to evoke the three aspects of self-compassion when you need it most.

Think of a situation in your life that is difficult, that is causing you stress. Call the situation to mind, and if you feel comfortable, allow yourself to experience these feelings and emotions, without judgment and without altering them to what you think they should be.

• Say to yourself one of the following: “This is a difficult moment,” “This is a moment of suffering,” “This is stress,” “This hurts,” or “Ouch.” Doing this step is “mindfulness”: A willingness to observe negative thoughts and emotions with openness and clarity, so that they are held in mindful awareness, without judgment.
• Find your equilibrium of observation with thoughts and feelings. Try not to suppress or deny them and try not to get caught up and swept away by them.
• Remind yourself of the shared human experience. Recognize that suffering and personal difficulty is something that we all go through rather than being something that happens to “me” alone. Remind yourself that “other people feel this way,” “I’m not alone,” and “we all have struggles in life.”
• Be kind to yourself and ask: “What do I need to hear right now to express kindness to myself?” Is there a phrase that speaks to you in your particular situation? For example: “May I give myself the compassion that I need; may I learn to accept myself as I am; may I forgive myself; may I be strong; may I be patient.” There is no wrong answer.

Exercise 3: Explore self-compassion through writing

Everybody has something about themselves that they don’t like; something that causes them to feel shame, to feel insecure, or not “good enough.” This exercise will help you write a letter to yourself about this issue from a place of acceptance and compassion. It can feel uncomfortable at first, but it gets easier with practice.

• Write about an issue you have that makes you feel inadequate or bad about yourself (physical appearance, work, or relationship issue) What emotions do you experience when you think about this aspect of yourself? Try to only feel your emotions exactly as they are – no more, no less – and then write about them.
• Write a letter as if you were talking to a dearly beloved friend who was struggling with the same concerns as you and has the same strengths and weaknesses as you. How would you convey deep compassion, especially for the pain you feel when they judge themselves so harshly? What would you write to your friend to remind them that they are only human, that all people have both strengths and weaknesses? As you write, try to infuse your letter with a strong sense of acceptance, kindness, caring, and desire for their health and happiness.
• After writing the letter, put it aside for a little while. Then come back and read it again, really letting the words sink in. Feel the compassion as it pours into you, soothing and comforting you. Love, connection, and acceptance are a part of your human right. To claim them you need only look within yourself.

Experience 4: Taking care of the caregiver

We work in the very stressful time of the COVID pandemic. As medical providers, we are caregivers to our patients and our families. Yet, we do not give ourselves time to rest, recover, and recharge. Remember, to care for others, you cannot pour from an empty cup.

• Give yourself permission to meet your own needs, recognizing that this will not only enhance your quality of life, it will also enhance your ability to be there for those that rely on you. Our time is limited but self-care can occur both at work and outside of work.
• When you are “off the clock,” be off the clock! Turn off notifications, don’t check email, and be present in your personal lives. If you are constantly answering patient calls or nursing questions until 10 p.m., that means your health care system is in need of an upgrade, as you need the appropriate coverage to give you time to care for yourself, just as well as you care for your patients.
• While at work you can practice self-care. Take 2 minutes to practice relaxation breathing. Take 1 minute to show yourself or another person gratitude. Take 5 minutes before you start writing your notes for the day to listen to relaxing music or a mindful podcast. Take 3 minutes to share three good things that happened in the day with your family or colleagues. Take 5-10 minutes to do chair yoga. Take a self-compassion break.
• Implement a 5-minute wellness break into your group’s daily function with some of the previous mentioned examples. This will allow you to care for and nurture yourself, while also caring for and nurturing others in an environment that cultivates your wellness goals.

As a hospitalist, I can attest that I did not show myself self-compassion nearly as often as I showed compassion to others. I am my own worst critic and my training taught me to suffer in silence, and not seek out others who are experiencing the same thing for fear of being perceived as weak, inadequate, or flawed.

This false notion that we need to always be tough, strong, and without emotion in order to be taken seriously, to advance, or be held in high regard is rubbish and only perpetuated by accepting it. In order to change the culture of medicine, we have to change the way we think and behave. I have practiced self-compassion exercises and it has enhanced my perspective to see that many of us are going through varying degrees of the same thing. It has shown me the positive effects on my inner being and my life. If you are ready to try something new that will benefit your psychological and emotional well-being, and help you through pain, suffering, struggles, and crisis, you have nothing to lose. Be the change, and show yourself self-compassion.

In summary, self-compassion is an attitude of warmth, curiosity, connection, and care. Learning to become more self-compassionate is a process of moving from striving to change our experience and ourselves toward embracing who we are already.⁹ The practice of self-compassion is giving ourselves what we need in the moment. Even if we are not ready, or it is too painful to fully accept or embrace, we can still plant the seeds that will, with time and patience, grow and bloom.

When we are mindful of our struggles, when we respond to ourselves with compassion, kindness, and give ourselves support in times of difficulty, we learn to embrace ourselves and our lives, our inner and outer imperfections, and provide ourselves with the strength needed to thrive in the most precarious and difficult situations. With self-compassion, we give the world the best of us, instead of what is left of us.

Dr. Williams is vice president of the Hampton Roads chapter of the Society of Hospital Medicine. She is a hospitalist at Sentara Careplex Hospital in Hampton, Va., where she also serves as vice president of the medical executive committee.

References

1. Sanchez-Reilly S et al. Caring for oneself to care for others: Physicians and their self-care. J Community Support Oncol. 2013;11(2):75-81. doi: 10.12788/j.suponc.0003.

2. Neff K. Self-Compassion: An Alternative Conceptualization of a Healthy Attitude Toward Oneself. Self Identity. 2010;2(2):85-101. doi: 10.1080/15298860309032.

3. Neff K et al. The forest and the trees: Examining the association of self-compassion and its positive and negative components with psychological functioning. Self Identity. 2018;17(6):627-45. doi: 10.1080/15298868.2018.1436587.

4. Zessin U et al. The relationship between self-compassion and well-being: A meta-analysis. Appl Psychol Health Well-Being. 2015;7(3):340-64. doi: 10.1111/aphw.12051.

5. Warren R et al. Self-criticism and self-compassion: Risk and resilience. Current Psychiatry. 2016 Dec;15(12):18-21,24-28,32.

6. Neff K. The Five Myths of Self-Compassion. Greater Good Magazine. 2015 Sep 30. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_five_myths_of_self_compassion.

7. Neff KD and Germer CK. A pilot study and randomized controlled trial of the mindful self-compassion program. J Clin Psychol. 2013 Jan;69(1):28-44. doi: 10.1002/jclp.21923.

8. Neff K. Self-Compassion Guided Meditations and Exercises. https://self-compassion.org/category/exercises/#exercises.

9. Germer C and Neff KD. Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC), in “The handbook of mindfulness-based programs.” (London: Routledge, 2019, pp. 357-67).

Background: Recurrent cellulitis is a common condition in patients with lower-extremity edema. Although some clinicians recommend compression garments as a preventative treatment, there are no data evaluating their efficacy for this purpose.

Dr. Herscher is a hospitalist in the Division of Hospital Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System, New York.

Background: Recurrent cellulitis is a common condition in patients with lower-extremity edema. Although some clinicians recommend compression garments as a preventative treatment, there are no data evaluating their efficacy for this purpose.

Dr. Herscher is a hospitalist in the Division of Hospital Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System, New York.

Background: Recurrent cellulitis is a common condition in patients with lower-extremity edema. Although some clinicians recommend compression garments as a preventative treatment, there are no data evaluating their efficacy for this purpose.

Dr. Herscher is a hospitalist in the Division of Hospital Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System, New York.

Background: VTE is common in patients with cancer and can lead to serious complications and death. Relatively recently, the use of edoxaban or rivaroxaban was recommended by major guidelines for the treatment of cancer-associated VTE. Previous studies have demonstrated a higher risk of major bleeding when compared with low-molecular-weight heparin. Whether oral apixaban can be safely used in this setting is unknown.

Dr. Hermansen is a hospitalist in the Division of Hospital Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System, New York.

Background: VTE is common in patients with cancer and can lead to serious complications and death. Relatively recently, the use of edoxaban or rivaroxaban was recommended by major guidelines for the treatment of cancer-associated VTE. Previous studies have demonstrated a higher risk of major bleeding when compared with low-molecular-weight heparin. Whether oral apixaban can be safely used in this setting is unknown.

Dr. Hermansen is a hospitalist in the Division of Hospital Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System, New York.

Background: VTE is common in patients with cancer and can lead to serious complications and death. Relatively recently, the use of edoxaban or rivaroxaban was recommended by major guidelines for the treatment of cancer-associated VTE. Previous studies have demonstrated a higher risk of major bleeding when compared with low-molecular-weight heparin. Whether oral apixaban can be safely used in this setting is unknown.

Dr. Hermansen is a hospitalist in the Division of Hospital Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System, New York.

Background: Antibiotic therapy is considered the standard of care for acute uncomplicated diverticulitis. Over the past decade, randomized clinical trials have suggested that treatment with antibiotics may be noninferior to observation with supportive care; however, there have not been any blinded, placebo-controlled trials to provide high-quality evidence.

Notably, though this study was adequately powered to detect differences in length of stay, it was not powered to detect differences in clinical outcomes, including death or the need for surgery. The exclusion of patients with language barriers raises concerns regarding the generalizability of the results.

Bottom line: Antibiotic therapy does not decrease length of hospital stay when compared with placebo for patients with acute uncomplicated diverticulitis.

Citation: Jaung R et al. Antibiotics do not reduce length of hospital stay for uncomplicated diverticulitis in a pragmatic double-blind randomized trial. Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2020 Mar;S1542-3565(20):30426-2. doi: 10.1016/j.cgh.2020.03.049.

Dr. Elyahu is a hospitalist in the Division of Hospital Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System, New York.

Background: Antibiotic therapy is considered the standard of care for acute uncomplicated diverticulitis. Over the past decade, randomized clinical trials have suggested that treatment with antibiotics may be noninferior to observation with supportive care; however, there have not been any blinded, placebo-controlled trials to provide high-quality evidence.

Notably, though this study was adequately powered to detect differences in length of stay, it was not powered to detect differences in clinical outcomes, including death or the need for surgery. The exclusion of patients with language barriers raises concerns regarding the generalizability of the results.

Bottom line: Antibiotic therapy does not decrease length of hospital stay when compared with placebo for patients with acute uncomplicated diverticulitis.

Citation: Jaung R et al. Antibiotics do not reduce length of hospital stay for uncomplicated diverticulitis in a pragmatic double-blind randomized trial. Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2020 Mar;S1542-3565(20):30426-2. doi: 10.1016/j.cgh.2020.03.049.

Dr. Elyahu is a hospitalist in the Division of Hospital Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System, New York.

Background: Antibiotic therapy is considered the standard of care for acute uncomplicated diverticulitis. Over the past decade, randomized clinical trials have suggested that treatment with antibiotics may be noninferior to observation with supportive care; however, there have not been any blinded, placebo-controlled trials to provide high-quality evidence.

Notably, though this study was adequately powered to detect differences in length of stay, it was not powered to detect differences in clinical outcomes, including death or the need for surgery. The exclusion of patients with language barriers raises concerns regarding the generalizability of the results.

Bottom line: Antibiotic therapy does not decrease length of hospital stay when compared with placebo for patients with acute uncomplicated diverticulitis.

Citation: Jaung R et al. Antibiotics do not reduce length of hospital stay for uncomplicated diverticulitis in a pragmatic double-blind randomized trial. Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2020 Mar;S1542-3565(20):30426-2. doi: 10.1016/j.cgh.2020.03.049.

Dr. Elyahu is a hospitalist in the Division of Hospital Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System, New York.

It could be argued that hospital medicine in the United States was made vital by a major infectious disease epidemic – the HIV/AIDS crisis – said Emily Gottenborg, MD, a hospitalist and program director of hospitalist training at the University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora. Certainly, it was born out of the need for change, for physicians who could coordinate complex patient care plans and serve as the “quarterbacks” of the hospital. “As a result, we have always been very nimble and ready to embrace change,” said Dr. Gottenborg.

That hospitalist-honed agility and penchant for innovation has proven to be invaluable during the current COVID-19 pandemic as hospital medicine–focused residency programs have been forced to pivot quickly and modify their agendas. From managing the pandemic’s impact on residents’ day-to-day experiences, to carefully balancing educational needs and goals, program leaders have worked tirelessly to ensure that residents continue to receive excellent training.

The overarching theme across U.S.-based residency programs is that the educational changes and challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic have often been one and the same.
 

Service versus education

At the beginning of the pandemic, trainees at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center were limited in seeing COVID patients in order to curb exposure. But now that COVID appears to be the new normal, “I think the question becomes: ‘How do we incorporate our trainees to take care of COVID patients since it seems it will be staying around for a while?’ ” said Rachna Rawal, MD, a hospitalist and clinical assistant professor of medicine at UPMC.

Mark Bolster ©UPMC All rights reserved.

This dilemma highlights the conflict between service and education. Residents have been motivated and eager to help, which has been beneficial whenever there is a surge. “At the same time, you want to preserve their education, and it’s a very difficult balance at times,” said Dr. Rawal. It’s also challenging to figure out the safest way for residents to see patients, as well as how to include medical students, since interns and residents serve as important educational resources for them.

Keeping trainees involved with daily virtual conferences rather than in-person interactions raises the question of whether or not the engagement is equivalent. “It’s harder to keep them accountable when they’re not in person, but it’s also not worth the risk given the COVID numbers at times,” Dr. Rawal said. The goal has become to make sure residents stay safe while still feeling that they are getting a good education.
 

A balancing act

“I think early on, there was a lot of pride in what we were doing, that we were on the front line managing this thing that was emerging,” said Daniel Ricotta, MD, a hospitalist and associate program director of the internal medicine residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, both in Boston. “And now I think people are starting to feel a little bit weary.”

It has been demanding trying to manage ongoing educational needs through this time. “At the end of the day, residents are still trainees and have to be trained and educated. They’re not just worker bees taking care of patients,” Dr. Ricotta said. Residents need a well-rounded clinical experience – “they can’t just take care of COVID patients and then be able to graduate as general internists,” he said – but that becomes onerous when the hospital is full of patients with COVID.

Along with balancing residents’ clinical immersion, Dr. Ricotta said there has been the challenge of doing “the content-based teaching from didactics that occur in the context of clinical work, but are somewhat separated when you need to limit the number of people in the rooms and try to keep as many people at home as possible when they’re not taking care of patients in order to limit their level of risk.” Adjusting and readjusting both of these aspects has had a major impact on residents’ day-to-day education.

“A big part of residency is community,” noted Dr. Ricotta, but the sense of community has been disrupted because some of the bonding experiences residents used to do outside the hospital to build that community have necessarily gone by the wayside. This particularly affects interns from around the country who are meeting each other for the first time. “We actually had a normal intern orientation this year, but last year, when everything was virtual, we were trying to find ways to bridge relationships in a way that was safe and socially distanced,” he said.
 

Improving quality

UC Denver is unique in that they have a 3-year program specifically for hospital medicine residents, said Dr. Gottenborg. Right away, “our residents rose to the challenge and wanted to be part of the workforce that helps care for this critical population of [COVID] patients.” The residents were able to run the ICUs and take care of COVID patients, but in exchange, they had to give up some of their elective rotation time.

One aspect of the UC Denver hospital medicine residency program is participation in projects that focus on how to improve the health care system. Over the past year, the residents worked on one project in particular that focused on restructuring the guidelines for consulting physical therapists. Since many patients end up needing a physical therapist for a variety of reasons, a full hospital puts increased strain on their workload, making their time more precious.

“[The project] forced us to think about the right criteria to consult them,” explained Dr. Gottenborg. “We cut down essentially all the inappropriate consults to PT, opening their time. That project was driven by how the residents were experiencing the pandemic in the hospital.”
 

Learning to adapt

“The training environment during this pandemic has been tumultuous for both our residents and medical students,” said Alan M. Hall, MD, associate professor of internal medicine and pediatrics and assistant dean of curriculum integration at the University of Kentucky, Lexington. Along with treating patients with COVID-19, he said trainees have also had to cope with anxiety about getting the virus themselves or inadvertently bringing it home to their families.

Like most medical schools, University of Kentucky students were shifted away from clinical rotations and into alternative and online education for a time. When they returned to in-person education, the students were initially restricted from seeing patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 in order to reduce their personal risk and to conserve personal protective equipment.

This especially impacted certain rotations, such as pediatrics. Because respiratory symptoms are common in this population, students were greatly limited in the number of new patients they could see. Now they are given the option to see patients with COVID-19 if they want to.

“Our residents have had to adapt to seemingly endless changes during this pandemic,” Dr. Hall said. For example, at the beginning of the surge, the internal medicine residents trained for a completely new clinical model, though this ultimately never needed to be implemented. Then they had to adjust to extremely high census numbers that continue to have an effect on almost all of their rotations.

Conversely, the pediatrics residents saw far fewer inpatients last winter than they typically would. This made it more difficult for them to feel comfortable when census numbers increased with common diagnoses like bronchiolitis. “However, those respiratory viruses that were hibernating last winter caused an unusual and challenging summer surge,” Dr. Hall said.

The biggest challenge though “is knowing that there is not a perfect solution for this global pandemic’s effect on medical education,” said Dr. Hall. “We can’t possibly perfectly balance the safety of our learners and their families with the dangers of COVID-19.”
 

Leadership discussions

As a residency program leader, Dr. Ricotta said there are conversations about multiple topics, including maintaining a safe learning environment; providing important aspects of residency training; whether to go back to full in-person teaching, keep doing virtual teaching, or implement a hybrid model; and how to help residents understand the balance between their personal and professional lives, especially in terms of safety.

“They have to their lives outside of the hospital, but we also are trying to instill ... what their responsibility is to society, to their patients, and to each other,” said Dr. Ricotta.

A more recent discussion has been about how to manage the COVID vaccine boosters. “We can’t have everyone getting vaccines at the same time because they might have symptoms afterward, and then be out sick – you’re missing half your workforce,” Dr. Ricotta said. But staggering residents’ booster shots created yet another dilemma around deciding who received the booster sooner rather than later.

The biggest consideration for Dr. Gottenborg’s leadership team was deciding whether to use their residents to help with the COVID surges or keep them in a traditional residency experience. While the residents wanted to be part of the pandemic response, there were many factors to consider. Ultimately, they came up with a balance between the amount of time residents should spend taking care of COVID patients while also assuring that they leave the program with all the skills and experiences they need.

Though Dr. Hall works more closely with medical students than residents, he sees the challenges and effects as being similar. Creating harmony between a safe learning environment and students’ educational goals has been the topic of endless discussions. This includes decisions as to whether or not students should be involved in person in certain activities such as large classroom didactics, written exams, seeing patients in clinical settings, and small group discussions.
 

Recruitment effects

When it comes to recruiting during a global pandemic, the experiences and predictions are mixed. Dr. Hall believes virtual interviews are making recruitment easier, but in turn, the fact that they are virtual also makes it harder for the applicant to get a good feel for the program and the people involved in it.

Dr. Ricotta reported that recruitment numbers have been fairly steady at Beth Israel Deaconess over the last few years. “In addition to the critical care physicians, hospital medicine was really the front line of this pandemic and so in some ways, we gained some recognition that we may not have had otherwise,” said Dr. Ricotta. He believes this has the benefit of attracting some residents, but at the same time, it could potentially scare others away from what they perceive as a demanding, grueling job. “I think it has been mixed. It’s dependent on the person.”

At UC Denver, Dr. Gottenborg said they are seeing a rapid rise in the number of applications and interest in their programs. Still, “I think this could go both ways,” she acknowledged. With the focus on hospital medicine in the media, medical students are more aware of the specialty and what it involves. “I think the sense of mission is really exemplified and everyone is talking about it,” she said. This is evident in the arrival this summer of the first new class of interns since the pandemic. “They’re incredibly passionate about the work,” said Dr. Gottenborg.

However, there is also the notable increase in physician burnout since the pandemic started. That this has been regularly featured in the media leaves Dr. Gottenborg to wonder if prospective residents will shy away from hospital medicine because they believe it is an area that leads to burnout. “I hope that’s not the case,” she said.

“I would actually argue [recruitment] is easier,” said Dr. Rawal. Like Dr. Hall, she sees virtual interviews as a big benefit to prospective trainees because they don’t have to spend a large amount of money on travel, food, and other expenses like they did before, a welcome relief for residents with significant debt. “I think that is one very big positive from the pandemic,” she said. Her trainees were advised to make a final list and consider going to see the top two or three in person, but “at this point, there’s really no expectation to go see all 15 places that you look into.”

Dr. Rawal also pointed out that recruitment is affected by whether or not trainees are expected to see COVID patients. “I know in some places they aren’t and in some places they are, so it just depends on where you are and what you’re looking for,” she said.
 

Shifts in education

It remains to be seen if all the educational changes will be permanent, though it appears that many will remain. Dr. Hall hopes that virtual visits to provide care to patients who have difficulty getting to physical clinics will continue to be a focus for hospital medicine trainees. “For medical students, I think this will allow us to better assess what content can best be delivered in person, synchronously online, or asynchronously through recorded content,” he said.

Dr. Ricotta predicts that virtual conferences will become more pervasive as academic hospitals continue to acquire more community hospitals, especially for grand rounds. “The virtual teaching that occurred in the residency program because it’s required by the [Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education] has, I think, informed how academic centers do ongoing faculty development, professional development, and obviously education for the residents,” Dr. Ricotta said. “I think virtual teaching is here to stay.” This includes telehealth training, which had not been a widespread part of residency education before now.

Trainees have been given tools to handle high patient censuses and learned a whole new set of communication skills, thanks to the pandemic, said Dr. Rawal. There has been a focus on learning how to advocate for the vaccine, along with education on situations like how to have conversations with patients who don’t believe they have COVID, even when their tests are positive. “Learning to handle these situations and still be a physician and provide appropriate care regardless of the patient’s views is very important. This is not something I learned in my training because it never came up,” she said.

Dr. Gottenborg has been impressed by the resident workforce’s response across all specialties throughout these difficult days. “They were universally ready to dive in and work long hours and care for these very sick patients and ultimately share their experiences so that we could do it better as these patients continue to flow through our systems,” she said. “It has been very invigorating.”

The pandemic has also put a spotlight on the importance of being flexible, as well as various problems with how health care systems operate, “which, for people in our field, gets us both excited and gives us a lot of work to do,” said Dr. Gottenborg. “Our residents see that and feel that and will hopefully continue to hold that torch in hospital medicine.”

In spite of everything, Dr. Rawal believes this is an exhilarating time to be a trainee. “They’re getting an opportunity that none of us got. Usually, when policies are made, we really don’t see the immediate impact.” But with recent mandates like masks and social distancing, “the rate of change that they get to see things happen is exciting. They’re going to be a very exciting group of physicians.”

It could be argued that hospital medicine in the United States was made vital by a major infectious disease epidemic – the HIV/AIDS crisis – said Emily Gottenborg, MD, a hospitalist and program director of hospitalist training at the University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora. Certainly, it was born out of the need for change, for physicians who could coordinate complex patient care plans and serve as the “quarterbacks” of the hospital. “As a result, we have always been very nimble and ready to embrace change,” said Dr. Gottenborg.

That hospitalist-honed agility and penchant for innovation has proven to be invaluable during the current COVID-19 pandemic as hospital medicine–focused residency programs have been forced to pivot quickly and modify their agendas. From managing the pandemic’s impact on residents’ day-to-day experiences, to carefully balancing educational needs and goals, program leaders have worked tirelessly to ensure that residents continue to receive excellent training.

The overarching theme across U.S.-based residency programs is that the educational changes and challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic have often been one and the same.
 

Service versus education

At the beginning of the pandemic, trainees at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center were limited in seeing COVID patients in order to curb exposure. But now that COVID appears to be the new normal, “I think the question becomes: ‘How do we incorporate our trainees to take care of COVID patients since it seems it will be staying around for a while?’ ” said Rachna Rawal, MD, a hospitalist and clinical assistant professor of medicine at UPMC.

Mark Bolster ©UPMC All rights reserved.

This dilemma highlights the conflict between service and education. Residents have been motivated and eager to help, which has been beneficial whenever there is a surge. “At the same time, you want to preserve their education, and it’s a very difficult balance at times,” said Dr. Rawal. It’s also challenging to figure out the safest way for residents to see patients, as well as how to include medical students, since interns and residents serve as important educational resources for them.

Keeping trainees involved with daily virtual conferences rather than in-person interactions raises the question of whether or not the engagement is equivalent. “It’s harder to keep them accountable when they’re not in person, but it’s also not worth the risk given the COVID numbers at times,” Dr. Rawal said. The goal has become to make sure residents stay safe while still feeling that they are getting a good education.
 

A balancing act

“I think early on, there was a lot of pride in what we were doing, that we were on the front line managing this thing that was emerging,” said Daniel Ricotta, MD, a hospitalist and associate program director of the internal medicine residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, both in Boston. “And now I think people are starting to feel a little bit weary.”

It has been demanding trying to manage ongoing educational needs through this time. “At the end of the day, residents are still trainees and have to be trained and educated. They’re not just worker bees taking care of patients,” Dr. Ricotta said. Residents need a well-rounded clinical experience – “they can’t just take care of COVID patients and then be able to graduate as general internists,” he said – but that becomes onerous when the hospital is full of patients with COVID.

Along with balancing residents’ clinical immersion, Dr. Ricotta said there has been the challenge of doing “the content-based teaching from didactics that occur in the context of clinical work, but are somewhat separated when you need to limit the number of people in the rooms and try to keep as many people at home as possible when they’re not taking care of patients in order to limit their level of risk.” Adjusting and readjusting both of these aspects has had a major impact on residents’ day-to-day education.

“A big part of residency is community,” noted Dr. Ricotta, but the sense of community has been disrupted because some of the bonding experiences residents used to do outside the hospital to build that community have necessarily gone by the wayside. This particularly affects interns from around the country who are meeting each other for the first time. “We actually had a normal intern orientation this year, but last year, when everything was virtual, we were trying to find ways to bridge relationships in a way that was safe and socially distanced,” he said.
 

Improving quality

UC Denver is unique in that they have a 3-year program specifically for hospital medicine residents, said Dr. Gottenborg. Right away, “our residents rose to the challenge and wanted to be part of the workforce that helps care for this critical population of [COVID] patients.” The residents were able to run the ICUs and take care of COVID patients, but in exchange, they had to give up some of their elective rotation time.

One aspect of the UC Denver hospital medicine residency program is participation in projects that focus on how to improve the health care system. Over the past year, the residents worked on one project in particular that focused on restructuring the guidelines for consulting physical therapists. Since many patients end up needing a physical therapist for a variety of reasons, a full hospital puts increased strain on their workload, making their time more precious.

“[The project] forced us to think about the right criteria to consult them,” explained Dr. Gottenborg. “We cut down essentially all the inappropriate consults to PT, opening their time. That project was driven by how the residents were experiencing the pandemic in the hospital.”
 

Learning to adapt

“The training environment during this pandemic has been tumultuous for both our residents and medical students,” said Alan M. Hall, MD, associate professor of internal medicine and pediatrics and assistant dean of curriculum integration at the University of Kentucky, Lexington. Along with treating patients with COVID-19, he said trainees have also had to cope with anxiety about getting the virus themselves or inadvertently bringing it home to their families.

Like most medical schools, University of Kentucky students were shifted away from clinical rotations and into alternative and online education for a time. When they returned to in-person education, the students were initially restricted from seeing patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 in order to reduce their personal risk and to conserve personal protective equipment.

This especially impacted certain rotations, such as pediatrics. Because respiratory symptoms are common in this population, students were greatly limited in the number of new patients they could see. Now they are given the option to see patients with COVID-19 if they want to.

“Our residents have had to adapt to seemingly endless changes during this pandemic,” Dr. Hall said. For example, at the beginning of the surge, the internal medicine residents trained for a completely new clinical model, though this ultimately never needed to be implemented. Then they had to adjust to extremely high census numbers that continue to have an effect on almost all of their rotations.

Conversely, the pediatrics residents saw far fewer inpatients last winter than they typically would. This made it more difficult for them to feel comfortable when census numbers increased with common diagnoses like bronchiolitis. “However, those respiratory viruses that were hibernating last winter caused an unusual and challenging summer surge,” Dr. Hall said.

The biggest challenge though “is knowing that there is not a perfect solution for this global pandemic’s effect on medical education,” said Dr. Hall. “We can’t possibly perfectly balance the safety of our learners and their families with the dangers of COVID-19.”
 

Leadership discussions

As a residency program leader, Dr. Ricotta said there are conversations about multiple topics, including maintaining a safe learning environment; providing important aspects of residency training; whether to go back to full in-person teaching, keep doing virtual teaching, or implement a hybrid model; and how to help residents understand the balance between their personal and professional lives, especially in terms of safety.

“They have to their lives outside of the hospital, but we also are trying to instill ... what their responsibility is to society, to their patients, and to each other,” said Dr. Ricotta.

A more recent discussion has been about how to manage the COVID vaccine boosters. “We can’t have everyone getting vaccines at the same time because they might have symptoms afterward, and then be out sick – you’re missing half your workforce,” Dr. Ricotta said. But staggering residents’ booster shots created yet another dilemma around deciding who received the booster sooner rather than later.

The biggest consideration for Dr. Gottenborg’s leadership team was deciding whether to use their residents to help with the COVID surges or keep them in a traditional residency experience. While the residents wanted to be part of the pandemic response, there were many factors to consider. Ultimately, they came up with a balance between the amount of time residents should spend taking care of COVID patients while also assuring that they leave the program with all the skills and experiences they need.

Though Dr. Hall works more closely with medical students than residents, he sees the challenges and effects as being similar. Creating harmony between a safe learning environment and students’ educational goals has been the topic of endless discussions. This includes decisions as to whether or not students should be involved in person in certain activities such as large classroom didactics, written exams, seeing patients in clinical settings, and small group discussions.
 

Recruitment effects

When it comes to recruiting during a global pandemic, the experiences and predictions are mixed. Dr. Hall believes virtual interviews are making recruitment easier, but in turn, the fact that they are virtual also makes it harder for the applicant to get a good feel for the program and the people involved in it.

Dr. Ricotta reported that recruitment numbers have been fairly steady at Beth Israel Deaconess over the last few years. “In addition to the critical care physicians, hospital medicine was really the front line of this pandemic and so in some ways, we gained some recognition that we may not have had otherwise,” said Dr. Ricotta. He believes this has the benefit of attracting some residents, but at the same time, it could potentially scare others away from what they perceive as a demanding, grueling job. “I think it has been mixed. It’s dependent on the person.”

At UC Denver, Dr. Gottenborg said they are seeing a rapid rise in the number of applications and interest in their programs. Still, “I think this could go both ways,” she acknowledged. With the focus on hospital medicine in the media, medical students are more aware of the specialty and what it involves. “I think the sense of mission is really exemplified and everyone is talking about it,” she said. This is evident in the arrival this summer of the first new class of interns since the pandemic. “They’re incredibly passionate about the work,” said Dr. Gottenborg.

However, there is also the notable increase in physician burnout since the pandemic started. That this has been regularly featured in the media leaves Dr. Gottenborg to wonder if prospective residents will shy away from hospital medicine because they believe it is an area that leads to burnout. “I hope that’s not the case,” she said.

“I would actually argue [recruitment] is easier,” said Dr. Rawal. Like Dr. Hall, she sees virtual interviews as a big benefit to prospective trainees because they don’t have to spend a large amount of money on travel, food, and other expenses like they did before, a welcome relief for residents with significant debt. “I think that is one very big positive from the pandemic,” she said. Her trainees were advised to make a final list and consider going to see the top two or three in person, but “at this point, there’s really no expectation to go see all 15 places that you look into.”

Dr. Rawal also pointed out that recruitment is affected by whether or not trainees are expected to see COVID patients. “I know in some places they aren’t and in some places they are, so it just depends on where you are and what you’re looking for,” she said.
 

Shifts in education

It remains to be seen if all the educational changes will be permanent, though it appears that many will remain. Dr. Hall hopes that virtual visits to provide care to patients who have difficulty getting to physical clinics will continue to be a focus for hospital medicine trainees. “For medical students, I think this will allow us to better assess what content can best be delivered in person, synchronously online, or asynchronously through recorded content,” he said.

Dr. Ricotta predicts that virtual conferences will become more pervasive as academic hospitals continue to acquire more community hospitals, especially for grand rounds. “The virtual teaching that occurred in the residency program because it’s required by the [Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education] has, I think, informed how academic centers do ongoing faculty development, professional development, and obviously education for the residents,” Dr. Ricotta said. “I think virtual teaching is here to stay.” This includes telehealth training, which had not been a widespread part of residency education before now.

Trainees have been given tools to handle high patient censuses and learned a whole new set of communication skills, thanks to the pandemic, said Dr. Rawal. There has been a focus on learning how to advocate for the vaccine, along with education on situations like how to have conversations with patients who don’t believe they have COVID, even when their tests are positive. “Learning to handle these situations and still be a physician and provide appropriate care regardless of the patient’s views is very important. This is not something I learned in my training because it never came up,” she said.

Dr. Gottenborg has been impressed by the resident workforce’s response across all specialties throughout these difficult days. “They were universally ready to dive in and work long hours and care for these very sick patients and ultimately share their experiences so that we could do it better as these patients continue to flow through our systems,” she said. “It has been very invigorating.”

The pandemic has also put a spotlight on the importance of being flexible, as well as various problems with how health care systems operate, “which, for people in our field, gets us both excited and gives us a lot of work to do,” said Dr. Gottenborg. “Our residents see that and feel that and will hopefully continue to hold that torch in hospital medicine.”

In spite of everything, Dr. Rawal believes this is an exhilarating time to be a trainee. “They’re getting an opportunity that none of us got. Usually, when policies are made, we really don’t see the immediate impact.” But with recent mandates like masks and social distancing, “the rate of change that they get to see things happen is exciting. They’re going to be a very exciting group of physicians.”

It could be argued that hospital medicine in the United States was made vital by a major infectious disease epidemic – the HIV/AIDS crisis – said Emily Gottenborg, MD, a hospitalist and program director of hospitalist training at the University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora. Certainly, it was born out of the need for change, for physicians who could coordinate complex patient care plans and serve as the “quarterbacks” of the hospital. “As a result, we have always been very nimble and ready to embrace change,” said Dr. Gottenborg.

That hospitalist-honed agility and penchant for innovation has proven to be invaluable during the current COVID-19 pandemic as hospital medicine–focused residency programs have been forced to pivot quickly and modify their agendas. From managing the pandemic’s impact on residents’ day-to-day experiences, to carefully balancing educational needs and goals, program leaders have worked tirelessly to ensure that residents continue to receive excellent training.

The overarching theme across U.S.-based residency programs is that the educational changes and challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic have often been one and the same.
 

Service versus education

At the beginning of the pandemic, trainees at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center were limited in seeing COVID patients in order to curb exposure. But now that COVID appears to be the new normal, “I think the question becomes: ‘How do we incorporate our trainees to take care of COVID patients since it seems it will be staying around for a while?’ ” said Rachna Rawal, MD, a hospitalist and clinical assistant professor of medicine at UPMC.

Mark Bolster ©UPMC All rights reserved.

This dilemma highlights the conflict between service and education. Residents have been motivated and eager to help, which has been beneficial whenever there is a surge. “At the same time, you want to preserve their education, and it’s a very difficult balance at times,” said Dr. Rawal. It’s also challenging to figure out the safest way for residents to see patients, as well as how to include medical students, since interns and residents serve as important educational resources for them.

Keeping trainees involved with daily virtual conferences rather than in-person interactions raises the question of whether or not the engagement is equivalent. “It’s harder to keep them accountable when they’re not in person, but it’s also not worth the risk given the COVID numbers at times,” Dr. Rawal said. The goal has become to make sure residents stay safe while still feeling that they are getting a good education.
 

A balancing act

“I think early on, there was a lot of pride in what we were doing, that we were on the front line managing this thing that was emerging,” said Daniel Ricotta, MD, a hospitalist and associate program director of the internal medicine residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, both in Boston. “And now I think people are starting to feel a little bit weary.”

It has been demanding trying to manage ongoing educational needs through this time. “At the end of the day, residents are still trainees and have to be trained and educated. They’re not just worker bees taking care of patients,” Dr. Ricotta said. Residents need a well-rounded clinical experience – “they can’t just take care of COVID patients and then be able to graduate as general internists,” he said – but that becomes onerous when the hospital is full of patients with COVID.

Along with balancing residents’ clinical immersion, Dr. Ricotta said there has been the challenge of doing “the content-based teaching from didactics that occur in the context of clinical work, but are somewhat separated when you need to limit the number of people in the rooms and try to keep as many people at home as possible when they’re not taking care of patients in order to limit their level of risk.” Adjusting and readjusting both of these aspects has had a major impact on residents’ day-to-day education.

“A big part of residency is community,” noted Dr. Ricotta, but the sense of community has been disrupted because some of the bonding experiences residents used to do outside the hospital to build that community have necessarily gone by the wayside. This particularly affects interns from around the country who are meeting each other for the first time. “We actually had a normal intern orientation this year, but last year, when everything was virtual, we were trying to find ways to bridge relationships in a way that was safe and socially distanced,” he said.
 

Improving quality

UC Denver is unique in that they have a 3-year program specifically for hospital medicine residents, said Dr. Gottenborg. Right away, “our residents rose to the challenge and wanted to be part of the workforce that helps care for this critical population of [COVID] patients.” The residents were able to run the ICUs and take care of COVID patients, but in exchange, they had to give up some of their elective rotation time.

One aspect of the UC Denver hospital medicine residency program is participation in projects that focus on how to improve the health care system. Over the past year, the residents worked on one project in particular that focused on restructuring the guidelines for consulting physical therapists. Since many patients end up needing a physical therapist for a variety of reasons, a full hospital puts increased strain on their workload, making their time more precious.

“[The project] forced us to think about the right criteria to consult them,” explained Dr. Gottenborg. “We cut down essentially all the inappropriate consults to PT, opening their time. That project was driven by how the residents were experiencing the pandemic in the hospital.”
 

Learning to adapt

“The training environment during this pandemic has been tumultuous for both our residents and medical students,” said Alan M. Hall, MD, associate professor of internal medicine and pediatrics and assistant dean of curriculum integration at the University of Kentucky, Lexington. Along with treating patients with COVID-19, he said trainees have also had to cope with anxiety about getting the virus themselves or inadvertently bringing it home to their families.

Like most medical schools, University of Kentucky students were shifted away from clinical rotations and into alternative and online education for a time. When they returned to in-person education, the students were initially restricted from seeing patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 in order to reduce their personal risk and to conserve personal protective equipment.

This especially impacted certain rotations, such as pediatrics. Because respiratory symptoms are common in this population, students were greatly limited in the number of new patients they could see. Now they are given the option to see patients with COVID-19 if they want to.

“Our residents have had to adapt to seemingly endless changes during this pandemic,” Dr. Hall said. For example, at the beginning of the surge, the internal medicine residents trained for a completely new clinical model, though this ultimately never needed to be implemented. Then they had to adjust to extremely high census numbers that continue to have an effect on almost all of their rotations.

Conversely, the pediatrics residents saw far fewer inpatients last winter than they typically would. This made it more difficult for them to feel comfortable when census numbers increased with common diagnoses like bronchiolitis. “However, those respiratory viruses that were hibernating last winter caused an unusual and challenging summer surge,” Dr. Hall said.

The biggest challenge though “is knowing that there is not a perfect solution for this global pandemic’s effect on medical education,” said Dr. Hall. “We can’t possibly perfectly balance the safety of our learners and their families with the dangers of COVID-19.”
 

Leadership discussions

As a residency program leader, Dr. Ricotta said there are conversations about multiple topics, including maintaining a safe learning environment; providing important aspects of residency training; whether to go back to full in-person teaching, keep doing virtual teaching, or implement a hybrid model; and how to help residents understand the balance between their personal and professional lives, especially in terms of safety.

“They have to their lives outside of the hospital, but we also are trying to instill ... what their responsibility is to society, to their patients, and to each other,” said Dr. Ricotta.

A more recent discussion has been about how to manage the COVID vaccine boosters. “We can’t have everyone getting vaccines at the same time because they might have symptoms afterward, and then be out sick – you’re missing half your workforce,” Dr. Ricotta said. But staggering residents’ booster shots created yet another dilemma around deciding who received the booster sooner rather than later.

The biggest consideration for Dr. Gottenborg’s leadership team was deciding whether to use their residents to help with the COVID surges or keep them in a traditional residency experience. While the residents wanted to be part of the pandemic response, there were many factors to consider. Ultimately, they came up with a balance between the amount of time residents should spend taking care of COVID patients while also assuring that they leave the program with all the skills and experiences they need.

Though Dr. Hall works more closely with medical students than residents, he sees the challenges and effects as being similar. Creating harmony between a safe learning environment and students’ educational goals has been the topic of endless discussions. This includes decisions as to whether or not students should be involved in person in certain activities such as large classroom didactics, written exams, seeing patients in clinical settings, and small group discussions.
 

Recruitment effects

When it comes to recruiting during a global pandemic, the experiences and predictions are mixed. Dr. Hall believes virtual interviews are making recruitment easier, but in turn, the fact that they are virtual also makes it harder for the applicant to get a good feel for the program and the people involved in it.

Dr. Ricotta reported that recruitment numbers have been fairly steady at Beth Israel Deaconess over the last few years. “In addition to the critical care physicians, hospital medicine was really the front line of this pandemic and so in some ways, we gained some recognition that we may not have had otherwise,” said Dr. Ricotta. He believes this has the benefit of attracting some residents, but at the same time, it could potentially scare others away from what they perceive as a demanding, grueling job. “I think it has been mixed. It’s dependent on the person.”

At UC Denver, Dr. Gottenborg said they are seeing a rapid rise in the number of applications and interest in their programs. Still, “I think this could go both ways,” she acknowledged. With the focus on hospital medicine in the media, medical students are more aware of the specialty and what it involves. “I think the sense of mission is really exemplified and everyone is talking about it,” she said. This is evident in the arrival this summer of the first new class of interns since the pandemic. “They’re incredibly passionate about the work,” said Dr. Gottenborg.

However, there is also the notable increase in physician burnout since the pandemic started. That this has been regularly featured in the media leaves Dr. Gottenborg to wonder if prospective residents will shy away from hospital medicine because they believe it is an area that leads to burnout. “I hope that’s not the case,” she said.

“I would actually argue [recruitment] is easier,” said Dr. Rawal. Like Dr. Hall, she sees virtual interviews as a big benefit to prospective trainees because they don’t have to spend a large amount of money on travel, food, and other expenses like they did before, a welcome relief for residents with significant debt. “I think that is one very big positive from the pandemic,” she said. Her trainees were advised to make a final list and consider going to see the top two or three in person, but “at this point, there’s really no expectation to go see all 15 places that you look into.”

Dr. Rawal also pointed out that recruitment is affected by whether or not trainees are expected to see COVID patients. “I know in some places they aren’t and in some places they are, so it just depends on where you are and what you’re looking for,” she said.
 

Shifts in education

It remains to be seen if all the educational changes will be permanent, though it appears that many will remain. Dr. Hall hopes that virtual visits to provide care to patients who have difficulty getting to physical clinics will continue to be a focus for hospital medicine trainees. “For medical students, I think this will allow us to better assess what content can best be delivered in person, synchronously online, or asynchronously through recorded content,” he said.

Dr. Ricotta predicts that virtual conferences will become more pervasive as academic hospitals continue to acquire more community hospitals, especially for grand rounds. “The virtual teaching that occurred in the residency program because it’s required by the [Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education] has, I think, informed how academic centers do ongoing faculty development, professional development, and obviously education for the residents,” Dr. Ricotta said. “I think virtual teaching is here to stay.” This includes telehealth training, which had not been a widespread part of residency education before now.

Trainees have been given tools to handle high patient censuses and learned a whole new set of communication skills, thanks to the pandemic, said Dr. Rawal. There has been a focus on learning how to advocate for the vaccine, along with education on situations like how to have conversations with patients who don’t believe they have COVID, even when their tests are positive. “Learning to handle these situations and still be a physician and provide appropriate care regardless of the patient’s views is very important. This is not something I learned in my training because it never came up,” she said.

Dr. Gottenborg has been impressed by the resident workforce’s response across all specialties throughout these difficult days. “They were universally ready to dive in and work long hours and care for these very sick patients and ultimately share their experiences so that we could do it better as these patients continue to flow through our systems,” she said. “It has been very invigorating.”

The pandemic has also put a spotlight on the importance of being flexible, as well as various problems with how health care systems operate, “which, for people in our field, gets us both excited and gives us a lot of work to do,” said Dr. Gottenborg. “Our residents see that and feel that and will hopefully continue to hold that torch in hospital medicine.”

In spite of everything, Dr. Rawal believes this is an exhilarating time to be a trainee. “They’re getting an opportunity that none of us got. Usually, when policies are made, we really don’t see the immediate impact.” But with recent mandates like masks and social distancing, “the rate of change that they get to see things happen is exciting. They’re going to be a very exciting group of physicians.”

Background: TXA is an anti-fibrinolytic agent that decreases surgical bleeding and reduces death resulting from bleeding in trauma and postpartum hemorrhage. A 2012 Cochrane review suggested a reduction in mortality with use of TXA in patients with GI bleed, but previous trials were small with a high risk of bias.

There was an increase in venous thromboembolism (VTE; deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism) in the TXA group versus the placebo group (0.8% with TXA and 0.4% with placebo; RR, 1.85; 95% CI, 1.15-2.98), as well as an increase in seizure events (0.6% with TXA and 0.4% with placebo; RR, 1.73; 95% CI, 1.03–2.93).

Bottom line: TXA did not reduce mortality risk in patients with upper or lower GI bleeding and should not be used in the routine management of GI bleed.

Citation: Roberts I et al. Effects of a high-dose 24-h infusion of tranexamic acid on death and thromboembolic events in patients with acute gastrointestinal bleeding (HALT-IT): an international randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Lancet. 2020;395(10241):1927-1936. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30848-5.

Dr. Chung is a hospitalist in the Division of Hospital Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System, New York.

Background: TXA is an anti-fibrinolytic agent that decreases surgical bleeding and reduces death resulting from bleeding in trauma and postpartum hemorrhage. A 2012 Cochrane review suggested a reduction in mortality with use of TXA in patients with GI bleed, but previous trials were small with a high risk of bias.

There was an increase in venous thromboembolism (VTE; deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism) in the TXA group versus the placebo group (0.8% with TXA and 0.4% with placebo; RR, 1.85; 95% CI, 1.15-2.98), as well as an increase in seizure events (0.6% with TXA and 0.4% with placebo; RR, 1.73; 95% CI, 1.03–2.93).

Bottom line: TXA did not reduce mortality risk in patients with upper or lower GI bleeding and should not be used in the routine management of GI bleed.

Citation: Roberts I et al. Effects of a high-dose 24-h infusion of tranexamic acid on death and thromboembolic events in patients with acute gastrointestinal bleeding (HALT-IT): an international randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Lancet. 2020;395(10241):1927-1936. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30848-5.

Dr. Chung is a hospitalist in the Division of Hospital Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System, New York.

Background: TXA is an anti-fibrinolytic agent that decreases surgical bleeding and reduces death resulting from bleeding in trauma and postpartum hemorrhage. A 2012 Cochrane review suggested a reduction in mortality with use of TXA in patients with GI bleed, but previous trials were small with a high risk of bias.

There was an increase in venous thromboembolism (VTE; deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism) in the TXA group versus the placebo group (0.8% with TXA and 0.4% with placebo; RR, 1.85; 95% CI, 1.15-2.98), as well as an increase in seizure events (0.6% with TXA and 0.4% with placebo; RR, 1.73; 95% CI, 1.03–2.93).

Bottom line: TXA did not reduce mortality risk in patients with upper or lower GI bleeding and should not be used in the routine management of GI bleed.

Citation: Roberts I et al. Effects of a high-dose 24-h infusion of tranexamic acid on death and thromboembolic events in patients with acute gastrointestinal bleeding (HALT-IT): an international randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Lancet. 2020;395(10241):1927-1936. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30848-5.

Dr. Chung is a hospitalist in the Division of Hospital Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System, New York.

Narine Sargsyan, MD, recently was named the 2021 Alton Memorial Hospital (Alton, Ill.) Chairman’s Award winner. Serving as BJC Medical Group’s hospitalist medical director and hospital department chief of medicine, Dr. Sargsyan won the award based on the nominations of her fellow physicians.

The Chairman’s Award goes to an Alton Memorial staff member acknowledged for contributions to the facility and the community, including promotion and execution of outstanding customer service. Dr. Sargsyan has been a point person for Alton’s treatment of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, recruiting new hospitalists to treat hospital inpatients. She also served on a committee selecting the inaugural resident class for the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine’s Family Residency program.
 

Alice Tang, DO, recently was named chief medical officer at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center (Woodbridge, Va.). The former medical director at Sentara Lake Ridge Hospital also directed the stroke program at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, so she is familiar with her new facility.

The hospital medicine veteran specialized in emergency medicine and earned her health care MBA from George Washington University. Dr. Tang said her goal as CMO is to enhance the care environment while simultaneously raising the level of the care given by Sentara providers.
 

Faisal Keen, MD, has been named 2021 Physician of the Year at Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s Sarasota (Fla.) campus. The award winner was selected by a panel of SMH physician leaders.

Dr. Keen has been a hospitalist at SMH Sarasota for the past 6 years.

In presenting Dr. Keen with the award, the staff paid particular compliment to the care he provided to the facility’s hundreds of COVID-19 patients throughout the pandemic. At one point during the surge, Dr. Keen worked 30 shifts during a single month. Among the praises he received during the award presentation were those for his efforts in hurricane preparedness and helping physicians at SMH utilize technology in their patient care.
 

Jeffrey Crowder, MSPA, PA-C, recently became the first physician assistant to be named chief of hospitalist service at Maine Veterans Affairs Medical Center (Augusta, Me.). He is the first PA to hold the position at any Maine VA hospital. Mr. Crowder held the role in an acting position for the previous year, helping Maine VA Augusta navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr. Crowder will oversee 13 physicians and 9 PAs in providing care to Maine’s veterans. Included in the facility are intensive care and medical surgery units. Mr. Crowder’s group is responsible for part-time coverage at the 60-bed Togus Community Living Center.
 

Southeast Iowa Regional Medical Center (West Burlington, Iowa) has expanded its hospitalist program, adding the service to its Fort Madison campus. The health system’s hospitalist program was initiated at SEIRMC’s West Burlington campus back in 2010. That facility now includes 12 full-time and five part-time hospitalist physicians.

OB Hospitalist Group (Greenville, S.C.) has been acquired by Kohlberg & Company LLC (Mount Kisco, N.Y.), giving the nation’s largest dedicated obstetric hospitalist provider a new stakeholder. OBHG hopes to expand its services, which already include 200 hospital partners across 34 states.

OBHG’s network of providers includes more than 1,100 clinicians, with sites normally featuring an OB emergency department with a practicing ob.gyn. on site around the clock. Kohlberg & Company was founded in 1987 and has organized nine private equity funds, raising $12 billion of equity capital.

Narine Sargsyan, MD, recently was named the 2021 Alton Memorial Hospital (Alton, Ill.) Chairman’s Award winner. Serving as BJC Medical Group’s hospitalist medical director and hospital department chief of medicine, Dr. Sargsyan won the award based on the nominations of her fellow physicians.

The Chairman’s Award goes to an Alton Memorial staff member acknowledged for contributions to the facility and the community, including promotion and execution of outstanding customer service. Dr. Sargsyan has been a point person for Alton’s treatment of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, recruiting new hospitalists to treat hospital inpatients. She also served on a committee selecting the inaugural resident class for the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine’s Family Residency program.
 

Alice Tang, DO, recently was named chief medical officer at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center (Woodbridge, Va.). The former medical director at Sentara Lake Ridge Hospital also directed the stroke program at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, so she is familiar with her new facility.

The hospital medicine veteran specialized in emergency medicine and earned her health care MBA from George Washington University. Dr. Tang said her goal as CMO is to enhance the care environment while simultaneously raising the level of the care given by Sentara providers.
 

Faisal Keen, MD, has been named 2021 Physician of the Year at Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s Sarasota (Fla.) campus. The award winner was selected by a panel of SMH physician leaders.

Dr. Keen has been a hospitalist at SMH Sarasota for the past 6 years.

In presenting Dr. Keen with the award, the staff paid particular compliment to the care he provided to the facility’s hundreds of COVID-19 patients throughout the pandemic. At one point during the surge, Dr. Keen worked 30 shifts during a single month. Among the praises he received during the award presentation were those for his efforts in hurricane preparedness and helping physicians at SMH utilize technology in their patient care.
 

Jeffrey Crowder, MSPA, PA-C, recently became the first physician assistant to be named chief of hospitalist service at Maine Veterans Affairs Medical Center (Augusta, Me.). He is the first PA to hold the position at any Maine VA hospital. Mr. Crowder held the role in an acting position for the previous year, helping Maine VA Augusta navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr. Crowder will oversee 13 physicians and 9 PAs in providing care to Maine’s veterans. Included in the facility are intensive care and medical surgery units. Mr. Crowder’s group is responsible for part-time coverage at the 60-bed Togus Community Living Center.
 

Southeast Iowa Regional Medical Center (West Burlington, Iowa) has expanded its hospitalist program, adding the service to its Fort Madison campus. The health system’s hospitalist program was initiated at SEIRMC’s West Burlington campus back in 2010. That facility now includes 12 full-time and five part-time hospitalist physicians.

OB Hospitalist Group (Greenville, S.C.) has been acquired by Kohlberg & Company LLC (Mount Kisco, N.Y.), giving the nation’s largest dedicated obstetric hospitalist provider a new stakeholder. OBHG hopes to expand its services, which already include 200 hospital partners across 34 states.

OBHG’s network of providers includes more than 1,100 clinicians, with sites normally featuring an OB emergency department with a practicing ob.gyn. on site around the clock. Kohlberg & Company was founded in 1987 and has organized nine private equity funds, raising $12 billion of equity capital.

Narine Sargsyan, MD, recently was named the 2021 Alton Memorial Hospital (Alton, Ill.) Chairman’s Award winner. Serving as BJC Medical Group’s hospitalist medical director and hospital department chief of medicine, Dr. Sargsyan won the award based on the nominations of her fellow physicians.

The Chairman’s Award goes to an Alton Memorial staff member acknowledged for contributions to the facility and the community, including promotion and execution of outstanding customer service. Dr. Sargsyan has been a point person for Alton’s treatment of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, recruiting new hospitalists to treat hospital inpatients. She also served on a committee selecting the inaugural resident class for the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine’s Family Residency program.
 

Alice Tang, DO, recently was named chief medical officer at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center (Woodbridge, Va.). The former medical director at Sentara Lake Ridge Hospital also directed the stroke program at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, so she is familiar with her new facility.

The hospital medicine veteran specialized in emergency medicine and earned her health care MBA from George Washington University. Dr. Tang said her goal as CMO is to enhance the care environment while simultaneously raising the level of the care given by Sentara providers.
 

Faisal Keen, MD, has been named 2021 Physician of the Year at Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s Sarasota (Fla.) campus. The award winner was selected by a panel of SMH physician leaders.

Dr. Keen has been a hospitalist at SMH Sarasota for the past 6 years.

In presenting Dr. Keen with the award, the staff paid particular compliment to the care he provided to the facility’s hundreds of COVID-19 patients throughout the pandemic. At one point during the surge, Dr. Keen worked 30 shifts during a single month. Among the praises he received during the award presentation were those for his efforts in hurricane preparedness and helping physicians at SMH utilize technology in their patient care.
 

Jeffrey Crowder, MSPA, PA-C, recently became the first physician assistant to be named chief of hospitalist service at Maine Veterans Affairs Medical Center (Augusta, Me.). He is the first PA to hold the position at any Maine VA hospital. Mr. Crowder held the role in an acting position for the previous year, helping Maine VA Augusta navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr. Crowder will oversee 13 physicians and 9 PAs in providing care to Maine’s veterans. Included in the facility are intensive care and medical surgery units. Mr. Crowder’s group is responsible for part-time coverage at the 60-bed Togus Community Living Center.
 

Southeast Iowa Regional Medical Center (West Burlington, Iowa) has expanded its hospitalist program, adding the service to its Fort Madison campus. The health system’s hospitalist program was initiated at SEIRMC’s West Burlington campus back in 2010. That facility now includes 12 full-time and five part-time hospitalist physicians.

OB Hospitalist Group (Greenville, S.C.) has been acquired by Kohlberg & Company LLC (Mount Kisco, N.Y.), giving the nation’s largest dedicated obstetric hospitalist provider a new stakeholder. OBHG hopes to expand its services, which already include 200 hospital partners across 34 states.

OBHG’s network of providers includes more than 1,100 clinicians, with sites normally featuring an OB emergency department with a practicing ob.gyn. on site around the clock. Kohlberg & Company was founded in 1987 and has organized nine private equity funds, raising $12 billion of equity capital.

Background: Although average survival after in-hospital cardiac arrest is 17%-20%, many clinicians feel that survival is lower in older patients or patients with multiple comorbidities. The Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) is a simple bedside visual tool that encapsulates patients’ mobility and functional status, with a score greater than 4 indicating frailty. How this measure of frailty correlates with outcomes after in-hospital cardiac arrest is unknown.

Dr. Chokshi is a hospitalist in the Division of Hospital Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System, New York.

Background: Although average survival after in-hospital cardiac arrest is 17%-20%, many clinicians feel that survival is lower in older patients or patients with multiple comorbidities. The Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) is a simple bedside visual tool that encapsulates patients’ mobility and functional status, with a score greater than 4 indicating frailty. How this measure of frailty correlates with outcomes after in-hospital cardiac arrest is unknown.

Dr. Chokshi is a hospitalist in the Division of Hospital Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System, New York.

Background: Although average survival after in-hospital cardiac arrest is 17%-20%, many clinicians feel that survival is lower in older patients or patients with multiple comorbidities. The Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) is a simple bedside visual tool that encapsulates patients’ mobility and functional status, with a score greater than 4 indicating frailty. How this measure of frailty correlates with outcomes after in-hospital cardiac arrest is unknown.

Dr. Chokshi is a hospitalist in the Division of Hospital Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System, New York.

Background: There are extensive publications regarding preoperative risk assessment and optimization of risk management. This article is a review of current aggregate data from various meta-analyses and observational studies. It explores a systematic approach to preoperative risk assessment.

Dr. Young is a hospitalist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and instructor of medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, both in Chicago.

Background: There are extensive publications regarding preoperative risk assessment and optimization of risk management. This article is a review of current aggregate data from various meta-analyses and observational studies. It explores a systematic approach to preoperative risk assessment.

Dr. Young is a hospitalist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and instructor of medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, both in Chicago.

Background: There are extensive publications regarding preoperative risk assessment and optimization of risk management. This article is a review of current aggregate data from various meta-analyses and observational studies. It explores a systematic approach to preoperative risk assessment.

Dr. Young is a hospitalist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and instructor of medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, both in Chicago.

Background: Naloxone is an opioid antagonist that works to treat opioid overdose. Few randomized trials have assessed the efficacy of intranasal administration, whereas more data have been published supporting use of intramuscular naloxone. This prospective trial examines the ability of the same dose (800 mcg per 1 mL solution) of intranasal naloxone vs. intramuscular naloxone at managing opioid overdose.

Dr. Welter is a hospitalist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and instructor of medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, both in Chicago.

Background: Naloxone is an opioid antagonist that works to treat opioid overdose. Few randomized trials have assessed the efficacy of intranasal administration, whereas more data have been published supporting use of intramuscular naloxone. This prospective trial examines the ability of the same dose (800 mcg per 1 mL solution) of intranasal naloxone vs. intramuscular naloxone at managing opioid overdose.

Dr. Welter is a hospitalist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and instructor of medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, both in Chicago.

Background: Naloxone is an opioid antagonist that works to treat opioid overdose. Few randomized trials have assessed the efficacy of intranasal administration, whereas more data have been published supporting use of intramuscular naloxone. This prospective trial examines the ability of the same dose (800 mcg per 1 mL solution) of intranasal naloxone vs. intramuscular naloxone at managing opioid overdose.

Dr. Welter is a hospitalist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and instructor of medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, both in Chicago.