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Affecting virtually every aspect of our health care system, the stunning growth and rapid integration of hospital-based medicine has affected the practice of both medicine and surgery by significantly modifying the delivery of inpatient, outpatient, and subacute care. This article details the history of hospitalists in the United States by defining the practice of hospital medicine and reviewing the evidence extolling its virtues. Although hospital medicine appears here to stay, work must still be done to address a number of current and future issues facing hospitalists and the health care community embracing them.
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The diagnosis of patients with chest pain is straightforward only occasionally. A systematic method of evaluating these patients is essential to assess for potentially life-threatening conditions. This article discusses noncardiac causes of chest pain, particularly GI causes and aortic dissection.
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The Women's Health Initiative (WHI) was halted 1 year ago, but fallout
from this landmark study continues. The study was designed to identify
the risks or benefits of estrogen plus progesterone vs placebo in
healthy postmenopausal women.
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The FDA has approved the first nasally administered flu vaccine. This cold-adapted, temperature sensitive, attenuated, trivalent vaccine is manufactured by MedImmune Vaccine, Inc. and marketed by MedImmune and Wyeth under the name FluMist. The nasal flu vaccine should be available this fall.
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While the numbers of cases of West Nile virus infection in the United States were relatively small from 1999 through 2001, in 2002 an epidemiologic explosion occurred with 4156 cases, including 284 deaths, in 44 states plus the District of Columbia.
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Taking into consideration the limitations of this study, it is time to for sliding-scale insulin to join bloodletting and trepanation in the Museum of Medical Anachronisms.
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This is the first study to convincingly demonstrate a strong dose-dependent relationship between increasing weight and increasing symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux.
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Prognostic Value of Ambulatory Blood-Pressure Recordings in Patients with Treated Hypertension; Tazarotene Cream in the Treatment of Psoriasis; Antihyperglycemic Effect of Oolong Tea in Type 2 Diabetes