Category: Faculty and Staff

How Should Clinicians Respond to International Public Health Emergencies?

Dr. Angela Hewlett, Medical Director of the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit, recently co-authored an article that appeared in the AMA Journal of Ethics entitled; “How Should Clinicians Respond to International Public Health Emergencies?” Dr. Hewlett shared a brief summary of the paper below: The paper is a case-based analysis of issues surrounding clinicians who respond to international public health […]

Feb 10, 2020

Blood culture contamination–it’s a big deal

Blood cultures are a key diagnostic test to detect bacteremia and appropriately treat patients with sepsis and are performed approximately 30 million times in the United States yearly. Unfortunately, contamination of blood cultures occurs in the 0.5% to 5% of samples (approximately 25% of positive blood cultures are due to contamination) which leads to inappropriate […]

Jan 21, 2020

Farewell 2019…another year of growth for UNMCID

2019 continued the theme of growth for our Division of Infectious Diseases. We have added several new faculty to our group (and still actively hiring), continued to redesign the College of Medicine Infectious Diseases curriculum, established a new Community Infectious Diseases service line, expanded our social media presence, joined and led multiple national Infectious Diseases […]

Dec 30, 2019

Evaluating Next-Generation Melioidosis Diagnostics

In addition to being one of our ID physicians, Dr. James Lawler serves as the Director or International Programs and Innovation at the Global Center for Health Security, a center that will focus on training federal personnel to manage highly infectious diseases, and Director of Clinical and Biodefense Research at the National Strategic Research Institute.  His interest in […]

Dec 23, 2019

PharmToExamTable: What do we know about Etravirine for HIV?

Recently, several of our HIV pharmacist colleagues in our Division of Infectious Diseases at UNMC/Nebraska Medicine, published an invited review in Clinical Pharmacokinetics entitled: Clinical Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics of Etravirine: An Updated Review.  The first author, Dr. Josh Havens PharmD, wrote this summary describing the review article. What prompted the review? This was an invited […]

Dec 17, 2019

Following up on pharmacist-led HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis

Earlier this year we featured a study by UNMC ID Drs. Sara Bares and Susan Swindells: “Midwest pharmacists’ familiarity, experience, and willingness to provide pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV.”  We’re excited to share an update on their work building inter-professional relationships to increase PrEP education and use in Nebraska that was recently published in Open Forum […]

Dec 6, 2019

Thanks and Gratitude

This time of year is a time for reflection, gratitude, and appreciation of the blessings we have, and we are grateful for the opportunity to share our thanks from all of us at UNMC ID.  We want to thank all of our blog subscribers, those who forward our blog on to others, and all of […]

Nov 28, 2019

#BeAntibioticsAware in the Community Hospital Setting

Bellevue Medical Center (BMC) is a community hospital campus of Nebraska Medicine. In 2017, our Nebraska Medicine Antimicrobial Stewardship Program expanded to include BMC with the expansion of our ASP expertise at our main campus. Danny Schroeder, a pharmacist at BMC, was recruited to lead the stewardship activities on that campus, with expertise provided by […]

Nov 20, 2019

Antibiotic Awareness Week Is Coming! How Will YOU Raise Awareness??

CDC has designated November 18-22, 2019 as US Antibiotic Awareness Week!  We are joining the CDC and many organizations around the world recognizing and promoting awareness for appropriate antibiotic use. During #AntibioticAwarenessWeek, collaborative blog posts from UNMC ID/ASP and Nebraska ASAP will be published between November 18 and 22. Check out these videos supporting the Antibiotic […]

Nov 17, 2019

Are you ever involved with prescribing antibiotics in the hospital? We want to hear from you!

The Nebraska Medicine Antimicrobial Stewardship Program (ASP) invites you to participate in a research survey entitled: Use of Oral Antibiotic Therapy (OAT) for Definitive Treatment of Uncomplicated Bloodstream Infections (uBSIs): Opportunities for Antimicrobial Stewardship. There are several studies describing successful use of oral antibiotics to treat bloodstream infections, but are clinicians actually using oral antibiotics […]

Nov 14, 2019