50 Studies Every Hospitalist Should Know

by Geisler, Benjamin P.; Greenwald, Jeffrey L.; Tran, Kathy May

• ISBN13: 9780190937126
• ISBN10: 0190937122
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780190937133
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2026-02-17
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

Hospital medicine is rapidly growing, driven by the increasing complexity of acutely ill patients and efficiency considerations. The field has expanded significantly, with over 60,000 hospitalists in the United States, including physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants. These professionals face endless diagnostic dilemmas and management options for ever more complex patients, as well as administrative pressure to improve care quality while controlling costs. Pay-for-performance incentives and medicolegal requirements further emphasize the need for current evidence-based management.

Specialty societies provide evidence-based guidelines for clinical care. However, managing individual patients on a general medicine service often requires detailed knowledge of key studies to determine if guidelines or meta-analyses are applicable. Understanding study populations and treatment effect sizes is crucial for making personalized management decisions and guiding patients and caregivers.

50 Studies Every Hospitalist Should Know introduces readers to pivotal articles that impact daily clinical practice and inform management recommendations. The book highlights essential details of each study, helping readers assess strengths and limitations not evident in guidelines and reviews. This knowledge aids providers in selecting therapeutic strategies and advising patients and families. The selected studies are high-yield and relevant to hospitalists' everyday decisions. The book is also a valuable teaching tool for trainees, illustrating evidence-based medicine and its application to patient cases.

Author Biography

Benjamin P. Geisler is a hospitalist at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Throughout his career, he has worked in various roles on health-economic evaluations, systematic reviews and with real world evidence such as population-based health registries. Dr. Geisler has also worked on quality and safety topics, as well as in a research group that focuses on machine learning and artificial intelligence. Dr. Geisler's career interest is the interface between new health technologies, their evidence base, and value.

Jeffrey L. Greenwald is an academic hospitalist at Massachusetts General Hospital whose career has taken him into the fields of HIV testing, care transitions, quality improvement and patient safety, medical education, and, for the last several years, primary palliative care education and implementation. He is an active clinician and teacher and an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School.

Kathy May Tran is an academic hospitalist at the Massachusetts General Hospital, teacher at Harvard Medical School, and Associate Editor of the Case Records of the New England Journal of Medicine. In addition to her identities as an active clinician, medical educator, and writer and editor, Dr. Tran is an advocate for workforce well-being, patient experience, and the arts and humanities in medicine.

Table of Contents

SECTION 1: NEUROLOGY & PSYCHIATRY
Chapter 1 Detecting delirium: The CAM study
Benjamin P. Geisler, MD, MPH
Chapter 2 Delirium prevention in older hospitalized patients: The Elder Life Program Trial
Mobola Campbell, MD, MPH, MEd
Chapter 3 Patent foramen ovale closure for cryptogenic stroke: The REDUCE Trial
Hugo Torres, MD, MPH
Chapter 4 Thrombolysis timing in acute ischemic stroke: The ECASS III Trial
Jillian M. Berkman, MD and Mark Etherton, MD, PhD
Chapter 5 Symptom-triggered vs fixed-schedule benzodiazepines for alcohol withdrawal
Rahul B. Ganatra, MD, MPH
Chapter 6 Education and naloxone distribution to prevent opioid overdoses
Victoria D. Powell, MD and Pooja Lagisetty, MD

SECTION 2: CARDIOLOGY
Chapter 7 Peri-operative risk for myocardial infarction or cardiac arrest
Jeffrey L. Greenwald, MD
Chapter 8 Perioperative beta blockers for non-cardiac surgery
Jeffrey L. Greenwald, MD
Chapter 9 Heparin vs. enoxaparin for unstable coronary artery disease: The ESSENCE trial
Bradford A. Hilson, MD
Chapter 10 Early invasive management for non-ST segment elevation acute coronary syndrome: The TACTICS-TIMI-18 Trial
Cian P. McCarthy, MB, BCH, BAO, SM
Chapter 11 Dual antiplatelet therapy for non-ST segment elevation acute coronary syndromes: The Cure Trial
Cian P. McCarthy, MB, BCH, BAO, SM
Chapter 12 Intensive vs moderate-intensity statins after acute coronary syndromes: The PROVE IT-TIMI 22 Trial
Nilay K. Patel, MD
Chapter 13 Loop diuretics for decompensated heart failure: The DOSE Study
Debbie Lin Teodorescu, MD, MEng, AM and Hugo Torres, MD, MPH
Chapter 14 Angiotensin receptor-neprilysin inhibition in heart failure: The PARADIGM-HF Trial
Peyton Hanson, MD and Kathleen M. Finn MD, MPhil
Chapter 15 Estimating risk of stroke in atrial fibrillation: The CHADS2 Trial
Yichi Zhang MD, MBA, Christopher S. Schenck, MD, and David M. Dudzinski, MD
Chapter 16 Apixaban vs. warfarin for atrial fibrillation: The ARISTOTLE trial
Priyank Jain, MBBS

SECTION 3: PULMONOLOGY & CRITICAL CARE
Chapter 17 Procalcitonin-guided antibiotic use in lower respiratory tract infection
Philipp Schuetz, MD, MPH
Chapter 18 Early discontinuation of antibiotics for community-acquired pneumonia
Kathy May Tran, MD
Chapter 19 Glucocorticoids in exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: The REDUCE Trial
Mobola Campbell, MD, MPH, MEd and Jeffrey L. Greenwald, MD
Chapter 20 Noninvasive ventilation for exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Raymond C. Parrish II, MD
Chapter 21 Clinical criteria and D-dimer to exclude pulmonary embolism: The Wells Criteria
Jeffrey L. Greenwald, MD
Chapter 22 Point-of-care ultrasound in acute respiratory failure: The BLUE Protocol
Thomas F. Heyne, MD, MSt and Kathy May Tran, MD
Chapter 23 Low tidal volume ventilation in acute respiratory distress syndrome: The ARMA Trial
Raymond C. Parrish II, MD
Chapter 24 Fluid management in acute respiratory distress syndrome: The FACTT Trial
Dominik J. Hoechter, MD
Chapter 25 Dopamine vs. norepinephrine for shock: The SOAP II Trial
Benjamin P. Geisler, MD, MPH
Chapter 26 Protocol-based care for septic shock: The ProCESS Trial
Benjamin P. Geisler, MD, MPH
Chapter 27 Targeted temperature management after cardiac arrest: The TTM Trial
Christy N. Taylor, MD, MPH and Jonathan Ludmir, MD

SECTION 4: GASTROENTEROLOGY
Chapter 28 Fecal transplant for recurrent Clostridiodes difficile infection
Farrin A. Manian, MD, MPH
Chapter 29 Antibiotic prophylaxis in cirrhosis and upper gastrointestinal bleeding
Farrin A. Manian, MD, MPH
Chapter 30 Endoscopic variceal ligation and nadolol to prevent variceal rebleeding
Rahul B. Ganatra, M.D., MPH
Chapter 31 Albumin for spontaneous bacterial peritonitis in cirrhosis
Bradford A. Hilson, MD

SECTION 5: HEMATOLOGY & ONCOLOGY
Chapter 32 Risk for venous thromboembolism in hospitalized patients: The Padua Prediction Score
Rahul B. Ganatra, MD, MPH
Chapter 33 Low-molecular weight vs. unfractionated heparin for pulmonary embolism
William C. Hillmann, MD, MS
Chapter 34 Low-molecular weight heparin vs. oral vitamin K antagonist for cancer-associated venous thromboembolism: The CLOT Trial
Marko Velimirovic, MD, MMSc and Hugo Torres, MD, MPH
Chapter 35 Perioperative anticoagulation for atrial fibrillation: The BRIDGE Trial
Priyank Jain, MBBS
Chapter 36 Bleeding risk from anticoagulation in atrial fibrillation: HAS-BLED
Jeffrey L. Greenwald, MD
Chapter 37 Transfusion thresholds in critically ill patients: The TRICC Trial
Jeffrey L. Greenwald, MD
Chapter 38 4 T's Score to exclude heparin-induced thrombocytopenia
Jeffrey L. Greenwald, MD
Chapter 39 Early palliative care for metastatic cancer
Mobola Campbell, MD, MPH, MEd and Kathy May Tran, MD

SECTION 6: FLUIDS, NUTRITION, & METABOLISM
Chapter 40 Timing of parenteral nutrition in critically ill patients: The EPaNIC Study
Mobola Campbell, MD, MPH, MEd and Katharine E. Black, M.D.
Chapter 41 Early nasoenteric tube feeding in acute pancreatitis: The PYTHON Trial
Margaret M. Chapman, MD
Chapter 42 Glucose control in critically ill patients: The NICE-SUGAR Trial
Hugo Torres, MD, MPH
Chapter 43 Zoledronic acid after hip fracture: The HORIZON-RFT Trial
Hugo Torres, MD, MPH and Kathy May Tran, MD

SECTION 7: HOSPITAL SYSTEMS & OPERATIONS
Chapter 44 Unconscious bias in referrals for cardiac catheterization
William J. Tate, MD and Sherri-Ann M. Burnett-Bowie, MD, MPH
Chapter 45 Replacing indwelling urinary catheters for urinary tract infection
Hugo Torres, MD, MPH
Chapter 46 Financial impact of healthcare-associated infections
Marc Philip T. Pimentel, MD, MPH
Chapter 47 Pharmacist-guided medication reconciliation to reduce readmissions
Hugo Torres, MD, MPH
Chapter 48 Patient-targeted discharge education to prevent heart failure readmissions
Aditya Achanta, MD and Jason H. Wasfy, MD, MPhil
Chapter 49 Identifying preventable 30-day hospital readmissions
Hugo Torres, MD, MPH and Jeffrey L. Greenwald, MD
Chapter 50 Effect of hospitalist care on medical utilization
Anand Kartha, MD, MS