Editor's Note:  Cholecystectomy case volume significantly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to study results published in ScienceDirect December 30. While cholecystectomy is infrequently performed in children, the pandemic drove lifestyle changes, delays in healthcare access, and increases in childhood obesity. Further studies are needed to determine whether these braoder…

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Editor's Note:  Large language models trained to extract patients’ social determinants of health (SDoH) from clinician notes could help to identify patients who need additional support and resources. The findings, from investigators at Mass General Brigham, appeared in the Nature journal Digital Medicine on January 11.  Housing circumstances, employment, access…

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Editor's Note:  Fondoplication and Roux-en-Y gastric bypass are both viable choices for treating gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) in patients with obesity, according to a recent study comparing the two procedures. Results were published December 27 in ScienceDirect. The study was based on a retrospective review of a prospectively maintained quality…

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Editor's Note The cost of COVID-19 hospital admissions increased at more than 5 times the rate of overall medical inflation as fewer patients died from the virus. The new study findings appeared in JAMA Network Open on January 3. The 26-percent increase in average costs to provide inpatient care occurred…

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Editor's Note Postoperative telehealth for general surgery patients is both safe and effective, according to a study published on December 22 in The American Journal of Surgery. The study consisted of a retrospective review of 1,075 veterans undergoing qualifying procedures at a medical center from June 2019 to September 2021.…

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Editor's Note The antibody shot Nirsevimab can protect infants from hospitalization from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). The results from the new clinical trial were published December 28 in The New England Journal of Medicine. Affecting two of three children in their first year of life, RSV causes seasonal infection and,…

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Editor's Note A study published in BMJ Open is “the first to present an illustrative model of clinicians’ real-world decision making for managing DDIs,” the outlet reported on December 1. DDIs, or drug-drug interactions, are known to cause significant harm (including death), hundreds of thousands of patients hospitalized each year…

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Editor's Note Researchers have discovered a new way to prompt blood vessel growth and prevent amputations in diseases such as diabetes and peripheral arterial disease. Findings were published December 19 in Cell Reports Medicine.  The study consisted of an in-depth examination of two patients involved in a clinical trial who…

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Editor’s Note A new automated delivery system for anesthesia that has been effectively tested in monkeys could eventually be used by doctors to identify and deliver the right dose of drugs in people. The findings appeared October 31 in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United…

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Editor's Note A new report is the first to offer a comprehensive examination of the barriers women nurses face in advancing into leadership roles. The report was published December 13 in eClinicalMedicine, part of The Lancet. The review looks at decades of research in order to establish the specific sociocultural,…

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