Tag: #UNMCID

COVID-19 – What is UNMC ID doing?

Although it has not been officially declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), as of this morning, there were 81, 191 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 2,768 deaths worldwide. To date, 57 of these cases are within US borders, and there are increasing cases throughout the world. UNMC & Nebraska Medicine have had […]

Feb 26, 2020

Freedom is in the Air: My Visit to Sudan, a Born-again Country

Here at UNMC ID, we are thrilled to share the global, and personal efforts, of our faculty. Please take a moment to read this excellent piece by Dr. Nada Fadul; Associate Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases, UNMC Sudan felt different this time. It was the middle of December 2019, the first anniversary of the Sudanese […]

Feb 25, 2020

About our First Year Fellows – Mark Ridder, MD

Tell us about your current position I a first year fellow of infectious disease at University of NE Medical Center. For the next 2 years I’ll be learning all I can from experts in the field for the diagnosis, treatment, and management of a wide variety of infectious diseases ranging from parasites and fungal disease […]

Feb 4, 2020

Should We Add Daptomycin to β-Lactams in the Initial Treatment of Methicillin-susceptible S. aureus Bacteremia?

Content from Dr. Razan El Ramahi, originally posted in IDSA journal club.  Despite the availability of active antibiotics to treat Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (SAB), controversy still exists regarding the optimal antibiotic strategy and whether combination antibiotics improve outcomes. In small clinical studies, a possible benefit was observed by adding daptomycin to β-lactams in the treatment of SAB. However, […]

Jan 28, 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

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

Unpacking the new IDSA Community-Acquired Pneumonia guidelines

We are always excited to have our ID fellows provide guest blog posts. Second year ID fellow Dr. Lindsey Rearigh (follow her on Twitter @LRearigh) was recently on her Antimicrobial Stewardship rotation and reviewed the latest published guidelines for Community-Acquired Pneumonia (CAP).  The American Thoracic Society (ATS) and Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) recently […]

Dec 10, 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

Nebraska Medicine receives IDSA Antimicrobial Stewardship Center of Excellence Designation

In 2018, the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) began recognizing “Antimicrobial Stewardship Centers of Excellence” at hospitals that meet or exceed best practice standards.  We are pleased to announce that Nebraska Medicine has recently been designated as an Antimicrobial Stewardship Center of Excellence effective October 2019.  As we celebrate #AntibioticAwarenessWeek for 2019, we are reminded […]

Nov 22, 2019

Antimicrobial Stewardship efforts in the state of Nebraska

Content provided courtesy Dr. Salman Ashraf: Associate Medical Director, Nebraska Antimicrobial Stewardship Assessment and Promotion Program (ASAP) & Medical Director, Nebraska Infection Control Assessment and Promotion Program (ICAP) CDC’s most recent (2019) report on Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States describes 2.8 million infections due to antibiotic resistant organisms in the US resulting in over […]

Nov 21, 2019