When I’m on service these days there is inevitably a moment when a resident says “Patient so-and-so is on X” - and I have absolutely no idea what X is. Modern subspecialist practice advances at such a remarkably rapid pace, it can be hard to keep up.

In this context, we’re excited to hear from infectious disease experts and nephrologists about updates in the care of older adults. Sonali Advani and Lona Mody talk about their recent JAGS article highlighting three recent articles that every clinician caring for older adults should be aware of in the treatment of infectious diseases (hint: I’ve never finished a course of antibiotics, and maybe your patients don’t need that full course either). Devika Nair and Rasheeda Hall talk about their JAGS article highlighting updates from nephrology in the care of older adults, including a link to this new eGFR calculator that does NOT include race. We have a discussion about the decision to remove race, a social construct, from clinical risk calculators (though I’m not 100% sold that race should always be removed - if removal is likely to worsen disparities for example - at least until a superior race-blind calculator can be developed).

These articles are part of a new series called Clin-Star Corner, a new series in JAGS that reviews practice changing articles in the care of older adults.

And yeah, they made me sing a Miley Cyrus song…(but not this hilarious parody about UTIs).

Enjoy!

-@AlexSmithMD

Updates in ID and Nephrology: Lona Mody, Rasheeda Hall, Devika Nair, Sonali Advani

GeriPal - A Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine Podcast