Educational Scholarship: A Modern Guide to Dissemination.

Dissemination of medical education scholarship is important for individual professional development and advancement of the field. With growing interest in medical education research, the venues for dissemination have grown in number and variety. In this article, we describe a general approach to meaningful dissemination of medical education scholarship, reviewing considerations for selection of a venue on the basis of type of project, personal and professional goals, and intended audience. After these overall principles, we provide an overview of specific venues, with equal emphasis on traditional manuscript-style submissions and newer digital opportunities for dissemination. Finally, we review tips for effective scholarly writing with a target venue in mind.

Reduction in Length of Stay and Morphine Use for NAS With the "Eat, Sleep, Console" Method.

OBJECTIVES: To reduce average length of stay (ALOS) in infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) transferred to the inpatient floor from the mother-infant unit. Secondarily, we aimed to reduce morphine exposure in these infants. METHODS: Using quality improvement methodology, we redesigned our approach to NAS on the inpatient floor. Key interventions included transitioning from a modified Finnegan Neonatal Abstinence Scoring System to the "Eat, Sleep, Console" method for withdrawal assessment, reeducation on nonpharmacologic interventions, and adding as-needed morphine as initial pharmacotherapy. Data for infants ≥35 weeks' gestation with confirmed in utero opioid exposure and worsening symptoms of NAS requiring transfer to the inpatient floor were obtained, including ALOS, number of morphine doses, and total morphine amount administered. Infants with conditions requiring nothing by mouth for >12 hours or morphine initiation in the ICU were excluded. RESULTS: ALOS for infants (baseline n = 40; intervention n = 36) with NAS transferred to the inpatient floor decreased from 10.3 to 4.9 days. Average morphine administered decreased from 38 to 0.3 doses per infant. No infant in the intervention period required scheduled morphine. The percent of all infants transferred to the floor for NAS requiring any morphine decreased from 92% at baseline to 19% postimplementation. There were no observed adverse events or NAS-related readmissions in the intervention period. CONCLUSIONS: Transitioning to the Eat, Sleep, Console assessment with re-enforcement of nonpharmacologic care and use of as-needed morphine as initial pharmacotherapy resulted in a notably decreased ALOS and near elimination of postnatal opioid treatment of infants with NAS managed on our inpatient floor.