Author: Kelly Cawcutt

Bacteriocidal versus Bacteriostatic: What Makes the Biggest Difference in VRE Bloodstream Infection?

An October 2018 publication in Critical Care Medicine by Chuang et al details a prospective study of adults in Taiwan, between 2010 -2015, aimed to assess all-cause mortality and rate of bloodstream clearance among patients with vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) treated with daptomycin (bacteriocidal) versus linezolid(bacteriostatic). Patients were treated with conventional daptomycin (6 to < 9 mg/kg […]

Dec 19, 2018

Saving SIRS? Discernment of Sepsis from Non-Infectious Syndromes in the ED

Upon patients’ arrival to the emergency department (ED), determining whether they do or do not have sepsis is difficult. Because of this, many patients receiving antibiotics ultimately are found to have a noninfectious cause of their syndrome. In order to try and improve detection of sepsis in the ED, Mearelli et al. completed a multicenter […]

Dec 10, 2018

Top 10 Things We Are Thankful for in ID – Letterman Style

Life is better with gratitude. Today, whether or not you celebrate Thanksgiving, we want to continue to show our gratitude and thankfulness to be able to help diagnose, prevent, treat, cure and even advance, the science of medicine. Now, let’s have a little fun! We are grateful for: 10. Hand washing with those cute seasonal […]

Nov 22, 2018

Earrings In Healthcare Workers: Friend or Foe?

Ear piercing among people, including healthcare workers, is a common trend. Katsuse et al, attempted to make a correlation between ear piercings and healthcare-associated infections. In order to prove this relationship, researchers sampled the earlobes and fingers of 200 nurses working at a university hospital. 128 of those nurses had pierced earlobes and 72 of […]

Nov 20, 2018

IDWeek 2018: Why We Still Don’t Wash Our Hands

At IDWeek 2018, the annual conference for the Infectious Diseases Society of America, I was struck by one simple truth. We are still talking about washing our hands, or in our professional lingo, hand hygiene. Hand hygiene is the simplest, most effective way to prevent infection. Most of us know this intuitively, without the science, […]

Oct 30, 2018

New Faculty Spotlight – Daniel Cramer, MSN, APRN, FNP-C

We are thrilled to have another member of our UNMC ID team. Read on to learn a little more about Daniel Cramer, who is joining our new Orthopedic Infectious Diseases team. Why did you choose to stay at UNMC? UNMC is home for me!  I completed my undergraduate degree here, as well as my graduate […]

Sep 7, 2018

UNMC ID’s Dr. Diana Florescu wins DANCE FOR A CHANCE

Back in May, we were thrilled to announce that Dr. Florescu was participating in YES Dance for a Chance Dance for a Chance raises awareness and money for Youth Emergency Services (YES) and the homeless youth of Omaha. There are hundreds of homeless youth in Omaha. Some of them have been emotionally, physically, or sexually abused, making […]

Sep 4, 2018

Clinical Pearls From Case Conference: Focus on CNS Infections

At Case Conference on August 16, Drs. Hankins and McCreery presented excellent cases of viral CNS infections combined with a great review of pertinent literature.  Here are the key clinical pearls from their presentations. Dr. McCreery on viral and bacterial meningitis: Empiric dexamethasone appears to be beneficial in S. Pneumoniae and H. Influenza meningitis but […]

Aug 31, 2018

Acing the Interview: Top Tips For Fellowship Interviews

As faculty, we have the amazing opportunity to both mentor and interview residents applying for fellowship in Infectious Diseases, and we have seen it all. From the great, well-prepared interviewee to the one who had the institutional information completely incorrect. We wish we could mentor every resident in person, but since that is not possible, […]

Aug 17, 2018

  Transplant Infectious Diseases Program University of Nebraska Medical Center – Omaha, NE The University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) is excited to announce the recruitment of a faculty position in Transplant-ID in the Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine. Successful candidates will hold an academic appointment at the assistant or associate professor […]

Aug 16, 2018