The American journal of medicine
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Review
Update in Outpatient General Internal Medicine: Practice-Changing Evidence Published in 2017.
Clinicians are challenged to identify new practice-changing articles in the medical literature. To identify the practice-changing articles published in 2017 most relevant to outpatient general internal medicine, 5 internists reviewed the following sources: 1) titles and abstracts from internal medicine journals with the 7 highest impact factors, including New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Journal of the American Medical Association, British Medical Journal, Public Library of Science Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, and JAMA Internal Medicine; 2) synopses and syntheses of individual studies, including collections in the American College of Physicians Journal Club, Journal Watch, and Evidence-Based Medicine; 3) databases of synthesis, including Evidence Updates and the Cochrane Library. ⋯ Clusters of important articles around one topic were considered as a single-candidate series. A modified Delphi method was utilized by the 5 authors to reach consensus on 7 topics to highlight and appraise from the 2017 literature.
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Providers face many challenges when faced with pain management. Pain is complex, difficult to understand and diagnose, and especially enigmatic to manage. The discovery of nonopioid agents for pain management has become particularly important considering the ongoing opioid epidemic. ⋯ Ketamine has unique pharmacologic properties that may prevent the development of pain as well as reduce chronic pain. This has led to the use of ketamine for perioperative analgesia as well as chronic pain syndromes. In select patients with pain refractory to other treatment modalities, ketamine may provide much needed relief.