Author: Jasmine Riviere Marcelin, MD

UNMC Infectious Diseases Fellows are Antibiotics Aware

The following was written by Dr. Raj Karnatak, 2nd year ID fellow at UNMC; a reflection of his current Antimicrobial Stewardship/Infection Control rotation: The UNMC Infectious Diseases fellowship antimicrobial stewardship and infection control rotation provides robust training for fellows in both antimicrobial stewardship and infection control. Training is well designed with education in all the […]

Nov 16, 2018

How Nebraska ASAP is Making Everyone Antibiotic Aware

The following was written by Dr. Salman Ashraf, co-Medical Director of the Nebraska Antimicrobial Stewardship Assessment & Promotion Program (ASAP): Antibiotic Resistance is one of the most urgent threats to the public health. Overuse and misuse of antibiotics allows the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Unfortunately, a significant proportion of antibiotic use in various healthcare settings […]

Nov 15, 2018

Nebraska Medicine is Proud to #BeAntibioticsAware

Our Antimicrobial Stewardship Program (ASP) at Nebraska Medicine has been in place since 2004. Over the years our program has changed and improved sought to expand and improve its approach with the goal of providing extraordinary care to our patients. Rather than an overly restrictive practice, our program has we have emphasized constant regular communication […]

Nov 14, 2018

Governor Ricketts Proclaims Antibiotic Awareness Week in Nebraska

Last year, Nebraska’s Governor Pete Ricketts signed a proclamation declaring Antibiotic Awareness Week in Nebraska, and he again signed a proclamation this year, declaring November 12-18 Antibiotic Awareness Week in our state. Once again, Dr. Maureen Tierney, leader of Nebraska’s Healthcare Associated Infections Program, championed the drafting of the proclamation and received support from the Governor for […]

Nov 12, 2018

Does the Clostridium Smell Diffy? Even the Dogs Disagree…

The C. difficile sniffing dogs are back! There are several prior reports of individual dogs being trained to “sniff out” C. difficile. In a novel approach, the authors of this study trained two dogs simultaneously, and then compared interrater reliability between sniff attempts. They used toxigenic C. difficile frozen stool samples (GDH EIA and PCR […]

Nov 5, 2018

UNMC Division of Infectious Diseases – New Faculty Announcement

The Division of Infectious Diseases is pleased to announce the arrival of our newest Faculty members! Nada Fadul, MD Dr. Fadul will be supporting UNMC’s efforts on various Ryan White awards through the Specialty Care Center, where she will also serve as the Associate Medical Director. In addition, Dr. Fadul will support the General ID […]

Oct 22, 2018

Pharm to Exam Table: Doravirine DRIVES the way to more ART options

The Department of Health and Human Services HIV guidelines panel currently recommends antiretroviral therapy (ART) consisting of two nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors plus an integrase inhibitor for most treatment naïve HIV infected individuals1.  Prior to the advent of integrase inhibitors, the utilization of non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) based regimens had been common.   Both efavirenz […]

Oct 15, 2018

Update for HIV Care Providers and Educators Revived and Reinvigorated!

Content written by Nikki Regan, APRN After a several year hiatus, the UNMC HIV Update conference was back and better than ever.  The conference planning committee at the UNMC/Nebraska Medicine Specialty Care Clinic started organizing this event over a year ago.  “The interest was definitely there,” said Ann Fitzgerald, APRN at the clinic and AIDS […]

Oct 12, 2018

An Empiric Nudge in the Right Direction

The following review was originally posted by Dr. Marcelin to the September 2018 SHEA Journal Club and featured on Medscape’s SHEA Expert Commentary earlier this month.  Use of empiric antimicrobial treatment in acute care settings is often the result of the “diagnosis momentum” heuristic, wherein the antibiotics started in one location for “sepsis” are continued for several […]

Oct 9, 2018

Dancing with the Doctors – An Event for Child Life 

This is a theme the pediatric patients are used to: bright lights and surrounded by doctors while their families are anxiously waiting nearby hoping for the best.  This time, the patients and doctors will meet outside of the Medical Center and their hospital gowns will be replaced with ballroom gowns. Under the coaching of Vintage Ballroom instructor, Rebekah Pasqualetto, three pediatric patients are teaming up with the doctors’ […]

Oct 3, 2018