That’s a wrap!
The best research of the year and the top professionals in the industry highlighted SHM 2024.
SHM Converge 2024 may be over, but it left attendees with plenty to talk about in the weeks to come.
The annual conference kicked off on Saturday, April 13, with the induction of three new Masters in Hospital Medicine — Leonard Feldman, MD, FAAP, FACP, MHM, Tara Lagu, MD, MPH, MHM, and Jerome C. Siy, MD, MHA, MHM. SHM outgoing President Kris Rehm, MD, SFHM, along with SHM CEO Eric Howell, MD, MHM, took the stage in San Diego to welcome these worthy candidates and leaders in their profession to this elite group of 46 Masters in Hospital Medicine.
“This is why we consider this the Hall of Fame for hospital medicine and our society,” Dr. Rehm told the crowd.
And the Masters weren’t the only honorees at SHM Converge 2024. The Award of Excellence Winners along with the top SHM Chapters in the country were also honored.
The Best Research and Innovations of 2023
The top research and innovations in 2023 were recognized during the meeting. Vineet Arora, MD, MAPP, MHM, shared a project her team at the University of Chicago Medicine undertook, called Inpatient Sleep Loss: Educating and Empowering Patients, or I-SLEEP. The goal was to study how hospitalists could help patients get a better night’s sleep in the midst of vital checks, medication doses and all of the other sleep interruptions that typically accompany a stay in the hospital.
“Patients face challenges getting quality sleep in the hospital,” Dr. Arora said. “We can all agree on that.”
Dr. Arora was joined by two other researchers with fascinating studies of their own: Ruchi Jain, DO, MS, co-director of Ronald Reagan and Santa Monica Hospital Medicine Practices at UCLA Health, was part of a group that examined how structured meetings between junior and senior hospitalists could lead to better outcomes for patients with difficult hospital discharges. And Julianne Ghiorzi, MS2, a student researcher at Eastern Virginia Medical School, was part of a team that explored whether or not the expansion of Medicaid as part of the Affordable Care Act made a difference when it came to heart failure mortality.
Education
If you were looking to expand your horizons in hospital medicine, there wasn’t any place better to be than SHM Converge 2024’s educational lineup.
On Saturday, Benjamin Verplanke, MD, FHM, presented the latest GI standards and discussed how to apply them to daily practice in his session, “Sun, Sand and Stomachs: Updates in GI.”
And on Sunday, Manpreet Malik, MD, SFHM, highlighted the basics of ultrasound-guided procedural safety with the session, “To Stick or Not to Stick: A Primer on Ultrasound Guided Procedural Safety.”
But sometimes, unlearning that education can be just as useful as learning it.
Lenny Feldman, MD, FACP, FAAP, MHM, associate professor of internal medicine and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, and Anthony Breu, MD, FHM, director of resident education and medical service at VA Boston Healthcare System, brought back their popular session based on their column of the same name, “Things We Do for No Reason.”
Dr. Feldman said sometimes hospitalists need to reconsider their thinking when it comes to what they were taught in medical school.
“In your residency, if you’re taught to practice in a certain way, you just do it generally for 10-15 years after graduating,” he said. “We want people to question more often some of the things they do. Some things they do from rote memory are not actually evidence based, and there are better ways.”
Thanks to all who attended SHM Converge 2024! SHM is already planning for SHM Converge 2025 April 22-25, 2025 in Las Vegas. Register now to receive the early bird rate.
SHM is also accepting speaker and topic proposals for next year’s conference. If you want to be part of the largest conference for hospital medicine professionals, submit your idea now.
Visit SHM Meeting News Central for more coverage.
