Anil Makam Profile picture
#UCSF #HospitalMedicine Physician Researcher at #SFGH || Research in outcomes & health services || #EBM advocate, but not in the usual sense
Oct 23, 2023 23 tweets 5 min read
Finished a brief stint on the faculty hospital medicine service in a safety net hospital

Lots of skin/soft tissue infections, addiction, & inability to care for self

Run down of every single patient I saw with a teaching pearl (or two)

I saved the best for last 1| AUD intoxication->fall->inability for self care

system pearl 🦪: there's a real donut hole in the safety net (& many hospitals frankly) for patients who don't have acute rehab needs, but need custodial care in the short term

what I do know is they don't need to see me daily
Oct 18, 2023 15 tweets 6 min read
Wow

Just read perhaps the greatest article about a doctors’ diagnostic skills

Not in the medical literature, but in an economics journal!

If you think about diagnosis, follow along

It won’t disappoint

@RogueRad 1| THE ISSUES

Diagnostic test thresholds have an inherent sensitivity/specificity tradeoff

But if the test involves doctoring (ie history or exam finding) is this tradeoff still true?
Aug 7, 2023 16 tweets 3 min read
5 cases I reflected on after a 5 day stint on service in the hospital 1A. Pt with AUD & freq falls was still orthostatic after 3L IVF & attributed possibly to dysautonomia

But HR change was ~30 beats with much less dramatic BP drop

ΔHR/ΔSBP >>> 0.5 so very c/w low preload (here hypovolemia)

Did better with more IVF

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29405350/
Dec 16, 2022 14 tweets 6 min read
It’s that time of year

Here are my top 12 studies from 2022 in no particular order that influence Hospital Medicine

I avoided:
-only abstracts (sorry SABATO & TRANSFORM-HF)
-COVID since the disease as we once knew it is uncommon
-Subspecialty or critical care only implications For agitated delirium it’s safe to treat with haloperidol & probably also saves lives

This upends what I thought I knew about delirium treatment

nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…

Dec 15, 2022 7 tweets 4 min read
Phenomenal must read piece by @awgaffney on the power & peril of intensive care

As stated, LTACHs are emblematic of this

Some reflections from our research... LTACHs are the 'afterworld' of the ICU as @paula_span coined it

nytimes.com/2019/09/13/hea…
Sep 12, 2022 25 tweets 6 min read
I shared my experience to celebrate remarkable progress

I apologize for my tweet, which was flippant in its implications since it was clumsily worded and lacked context

Many chose to assume the worst—such is life

A longish thread if you will let me Many of you who engaged with this tweet don’t know me and have not been following me since chapter 1 of the pandemic

Here are my disclaimers

Jun 21, 2022 15 tweets 4 min read
1| This thread is for other parents who are also deciding about #COVID vax for their toddlers (2-4 yo) who have ALREADY had Omicron

TLDR: Will wait to see: 1) vax effectivness vs BA4/5; 2) whether new vax to O variants available; 3) most importantly, how day care policies evolve 2| Disclaimers:

-I believe COVID mRNA vax for adults is among the most remarkable scientific innovations in our history

-I am vaxxed with pfizer x3 (and my DNA hasn't been altered)
Sep 3, 2021 25 tweets 8 min read
The community masking trial in Bangladesh by @Jabaluck @mushfiq_econ et al is AMAZING & EXCEPTIONALLY well done

Joy to read & I learned a LOT

Encourage all scientists in related disciplines to read, even if not your content

Thread on study

poverty-action.org/publication/im… 2| DISCLAIMERS FIRST

1. I apply this same scientific lens to all health care & pharma trials I find interesting

2. Most relevant & needed to LMIC. But I will also take a US lens on how this may apply

I understand this is a hot button, or should we say, a hot mask issue
Apr 6, 2020 11 tweets 3 min read
Attended on the Hospitalist #COVID service for 3 days at #ZSFG. Thread on reflections as a safety-net hospitalist

Don't worry, unlike making lemonade from lemons, I will not make evidence out of limited anecdotal experience 2| For context

In SF as of April 5th we have 529 COVID19+ patients with 8 deaths (aka not close to NYC)

At ZSFG, we have 26 admitted patients, with 16 in the ICU

No overt shortages, though we are conserving faceshields & N95 masks between COVID19 patients
Aug 27, 2018 11 tweets 6 min read
1| Good #cardiotwitter on #SCOTHeart. Others have tweeted reasons y believable. Here is my reply tweetorial

@khurramn1 @AChoiHeart @MarcDweck @JWeirMcCall @rwyeh @drjohnm @venkmurthy @DavidLBrownMD @RogueRad
#ESCCongress
Linking my original tweetorial:
2| Let's start with MI def. Billing codes less accurate than adjudicated MI outcomes, yes? Could be nondiff misclassification which bias to null. But could also be diff w/ ascertainment bias (look harder, anchoring) knowing CCTA result, since 2/3rds normal or nonobstruct.
Aug 25, 2018 12 tweets 6 min read
1| follow for my critical appraisal tweetorial of #SCOTHEART trial in @NEJM #ESCCongress

Basics: RCT of upfront CTA vs standard of care for stable CP referred to Scottish cardiology clinics. 1.6% fewer had primary outcome with CTA

nejm.org/doi/full/10.10… 2| more basics: primary outcome is driven by nonfatal MI, not death. Authors did tremendous job at highlighting this

#ESCCongress #SCOTHEART