PHYSICIANS REACT: COMPENSATION ISN’T WORTH THE HASSLES. WHAT’S THE SOLUTION?
Medscape’s Physician Compensation Report 2022: “Incomes Gain, Pay Gaps Remain” generally shows encouraging trends. And for the first time in Medscape’s 11 years of reporting on physician compensation, average income rose for every medical specialty surveyed. Many commenters were highly distressed or even angry about their compensation.
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BA.5 – SIGNIFICANT UPDATES FROM THE PREVIOUS BA.5 STORY
There are more copies of the virus because BA.5 has far better ability to get into cells (tropism related to TMPRSS binding efficiency) which may help explain why this version of the virus has caused a lot of trouble, more than other Omicron subvariants. In the United States, the march of exponential growth for BA.5 has progressed to dominance, accounting for ~54% of current infections as of July 2nd.
Full Access:Ground Truths
U.S. ALLOWS PHARMACISTS TO PRESCRIBE PAXLOVID DIRECTLY
The Food and Drug Administration revised the drug’s emergency use authorization on July 6, letting state-licensed pharmacists screen patients and determine if they are eligible for Paxlovid. Since Paxlovid must be taken within 5 days after symptoms begin, authorizing state-licensed pharmacists to prescribe Paxlovid could expand access to timely treatment for some patients who are eligible to receive this drug for the treatment of COVID-19.
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PATTERNS, PREDICTORS, AND INTERCENTER VARIABILITY IN EMPIRIC GRAM-NEGATIVE ANTIBIOTIC USE ACROSS 928 UNITED STATES HOSPITALS
A retrospective cohort study found that >1 of every 5 US hospitalized patients received broad-spectrum gram-negative antibiotics in the first 2 days of hospitalization. There were significant disparities in the receipt of broad-spectrum therapy by patient sex and race, which suggests that nonclinical factors influence inpatient empiric prescribing and that these patterns are systemic across US hospitals. And while this study was not specifically designed to evaluate antibiotic appropriateness, researchers identified signals of both overuse and underuse of broad-spectrum empiric therapy that warrant further investigation.
Full Access: Clinical Infectious Diseases