Assessment of Agenda Setting With ACGME Milestones in Family Medicine Residents.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Family medicine residents are scored via milestones created by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) on various clinical domains, including communication. Communication involves a resident's ability to set an agenda, but this is rarely taught in formal education. Our study aimed to examine the relationship between ACGME Milestone achievement and ability to set a visit agenda, as measured by direct observation (DO) forms. METHODS: We examined biannual (December, June) ACGME scores for family medicine residents at an academic institution from 2015-2020. Using faculty DO scores, we rated residents on six items corresponding to agenda setting. We used Spearman and Pearson correlations and two-sample paired t tests to analyze results. RESULTS: We analyzed a total of 246 ACGME scores and 215 DO forms. For first-year residents, we found significant, positive associations between agenda-setting and the total Milestone score (r[190]=.15, P=.034) in December, and in individual (r[190]=.17, P=.020) and total communication scores (r[186]=.16, P=.031), in June. However, for first-year residents, we found no significant correlations with communication scores in December or in the total milestone scores in June. We found significant progression for consecutive years in both communication milestones (t=-15.06, P<0.001) and agenda setting (t=-12.26, P<.001). CONCLUSIONS: The significant associations found in agenda setting with both ACGME total communication and Milestone scores for first-year residents only, suggests that agenda setting may be fundamental in early resident education.

Increased Ileostomy Output as an Indicator of Thyroid Storm in a Patient without an Established History of Underlying Thyroid Disease.

BACKGROUND Thyroid storm, also known as thyrotoxic crisis, is a rare but life-threatening endocrine emergency that presents with multisystem involvement. Patients present with pronounced signs of hyperthyroidism, fever, tachycardia, and differing severities of multisystem dysfunction and decompensation. Early recognition and prompt initiation of treatment are important. The development of thyroid storm in patients with no established history of underlying hyperthyroidism is rare. CASE REPORT In this case report, we describe the occurrence of thyroid storm in a 27-year-old man without an established history of underlying thyroid disease, who was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with a high ileostomy output and fever. Although initially treated for possible sepsis, the diagnosis of thyroid storm was made only after a thorough workup was initiated and he was found to have underlying Graves' disease. Prompt treatment resulted in the resolution of symptoms and avoided potential morbidity and mortality. CONCLUSIONS This case highlights the potential difficulty in diagnosing thyroid storm in a patient admitted to the ICU without an established history of hyperthyroidism. Upgrade in care, timely diagnosis, and initiation of appropriate therapy led to a favorable outcome. Clinicians should consider hyperthyroidism as a possible cause of high ileostomy output, especially when it does not resolve with traditional treatment and no obvious cause can be identified. This case demonstrates the challenges presented when the patient's history and clinical signs are ambiguous and stresses the importance of "outside the box" thinking.