Author: Kelly Cawcutt

Happy Medical Laboratory Professionals Week – Celebrating our AWESOME Microbiology team!

Work hard, play hard. Medicine is a hard job AND a team sport. We must take time out to celebrate our colleagues work and accomplishments! This week is Medical Laboratory Professionals Week, which is held the last full week of April each year.  Events are held to celebrate the critical work that clinical laboratory scientists […]

Apr 27, 2017

UNMC Study Documents Value of Blood Diversion Device to Prevent Contamination of Blood Cultures

A prospective controlled trial conducted by Rupp and colleagues in the UNMC ID Division demonstrates a significant 87.6% decrease in blood culture contamination.  Results were recently published in Clinical Infectious Diseases and are available on open access at:  https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/3099374/Reduction-in-Blood-Culture-Contamination-Through The study was conducted in the Nebraska Medicine Emergency Department and involved 971 patients and 1,942 […]

Apr 24, 2017

Dr. Sandkovsky on “Why I Love ID”

Dr. Sandkovsky on “Why I Love ID”: I love ID because we tend to deal with the unknown, and even when we think we might know there is this intriguing relationship between clinical medicine, basic science and pathophysiology, combined with the social aspects provided by our patients, who make this such a personalized and unique specialty. […]

Apr 21, 2017

“After Ebola: Nebraska and the Next Pandemic”

Nebraska is a midwest state with those innate values that, in my limited experience thus far, tends to be against boasting and toward humility. Characteristics often to be proud of, but at times, humbleness verges on being a fault. The Ebola experience highlights the experience here – UNMC and NMC were ready for Ebola – for […]

Apr 19, 2017

Improving Patient Care Through Research

Our Division is committed to improving the care of our patient through scholarly activities including clinical research. Here is one of our teams out on the patient floors collecting data related to improve the technology we use for intravenous (IV) lines in our patients. We presented our first phase of this project at IDWeek last […]

Apr 17, 2017

Dr. Florescu on “Why I Love ID”

Dr. Florescu on “Why I Love ID”:  In infectious diseases, the process of diagnosis is like detective work, a real challenge of the clinical ability. I also feel that I have a significant impact on the life of my patients – infections can make people incredibly sick very fast, and I can get them back […]

Apr 13, 2017

ID Interest Group Continues to Expand Around Careers in Infectious Diseases

Last week, our Infectious Diseases Interest Group held a multidisciplinary panel surrounding careers in Infectious Diseases. Students from medicine, pharmacy, nursing, graduate studies and public health were all in attendance! There are broad career opportunities within Infectious Diseases and this area always evolving. Teams are multidisciplinary and truly collaborate together regarding patient care, education and scholarly […]

Apr 11, 2017

Infectious Diseases Journal Club – Why Antibiotics Are Not Always The Answer

Asymptomatic bacteriuria (presence of bacteria in the urine with no clinical symptoms) is a common finding, especially in the elderly and people with diabetes, and current guidelines recommend against treating patients who harbor bacteria in the urine. There are a few exceptions, for example treating pregnant women, in order to prevent complications. This scenario however, […]

Apr 7, 2017

UNMC ID BLOG SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE WORKING!

Hello all of you ID enthusiasts! First, THANK you for following. We are both thrilled and humbled to have well over 1000 visits to our blog already! Keep your eyes out –  new content will be posting soon! Many of you may have tried to subscribe to this blog earlier – and if you didn’t, […]

Apr 6, 2017

Dr. Bares on “Why I Love ID”

Dr. Bares on “Why I Love ID”: The privilege of taking care of a diverse group of patients, including some of the poorest and most marginalized patients in this region, makes being an ID physician an unbelievably challenging and rewarding experience. Doing so alongside a wonderful team of smart and thoughtful people is the reason I […]

Apr 5, 2017