Case Presentation: An 18 year-old Hispanic female presented to a tertiary care center with six days of left-sided flank pain and gross hematuria. Upon further questioning, she additionally endorsed two to three months of generalized [...]
Background: Prognostication of survival in advanced cancer patients has been challenging and contributes to poor illness understanding. Disagreements among providers about prognosis occur and is a less studied phenomenon. We asked the Surprise Question (SQ), [...]
Background: Millions of patients with cancer are hospitalized each year in the US for treatment or complications of their disease. Increasing numbers are cared for by hospitalists on services dedicated to patients with cancer. Little [...]
Case Presentation: A 69 year-old male with widely metastatic melanoma presenting seven weeks into his treatment with ipilimumab and nivolumab with five days of progressive lightheadedness, headache, nausea, non-bloody emesis, and generalized malaise. The patient [...]
Background: Standardizing inter-shift handoff procedures enhances continuity of care and quality with an associated reduction in preventable medical errors. This is particularly relevant in the inpatient oncology population where patients have a relatively high morbidity/mortality [...]
Case Presentation: A 52-year-old female with a history of uterine leiomyomas presents with abdominal pain and vaginal bleeding for six months, acutely worsened over the past two weeks. Two months prior to the current admission, [...]
Case Presentation: A 95 year old woman with a remote history of treated breast cancer and endometrial cancer presented to the hospital with severe abdominal pain and somnolence. One month prior, the patient was living [...]
Background: Admitted Hematologic and Oncologic patients are often complex and have a unique set of challenges. Balancing outpatient care plans with inpatient medical and psychosocial issues can lead to long lengths of stay, patient dissatisfaction, [...]
Background: Prognostication of survival in advanced cancer patients has been challenging and contributes to poor illness understanding. Prognostic disagreement occurs even amongst providers and is a less studied phenomenon. We introduced the Surprise Question (SQ), [...]
Background: When a patient with cancer or terminal illness is hospitalized, they may benefit from the input of their outpatient, primary oncologist or palliative care provider to inform key decisions. As most oncologists’ and ambulatory [...]