AbstractBackgroundEntrustable professional activities (EPAs) are a new tool for assessing learners that represents a significant movement in graduate medical education (GME) toward competency‐based assessment and serves as a bridge between milestones and clinical practice. Whenever a major change is implemented to any system, resistance to change is expected. Many change management models have been proposed to overcome this resistance; a newer model is outlined in the book Switch. The objective was to describe the change management principles used to institute an EPA.MethodsThe model introduced in Switch was used as a framework for implementing a trauma resuscitation EPA in a joint effort between the departments of surgery and emergency medicine (EM) at the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics. The Department of Emergency Medicine used the principles of change management, completing 295 faculty evaluations of trauma resuscitations compared to the Department of Surgery, whose faculty completed 50 evaluations between the study period of July 2018 through October 2019. A survey completed winter 2019 of EM faculty was used to determine the most important principles toward successful implementation.ResultsTwenty‐seven of 35 (78% response rate) of EM faculty identified key concepts from Switch as being instrumental in the successful implementation. Internal discussion of the implementation approach used by the Department of Surgery identified several limitations that would have been overcome by using these same change management principles.ConclusionWe conclude that the principles of change management provide a useful framework for successfully implementing EPAs into GME.
Postoperative Hardware-Related Infection from Kytococcus schroeteri: Its Association with Prosthetic Material and Hematological Malignancies—A Report of a Case and Review of Existing Literature
Introduction. Kytococcus schroeteri is an infrequently isolated Gram-positive coccus often encountered as a commensal bacterium. Only eighteen cases of human infection associated with this organism have been previously reported. Most of these cases involved patients with implanted prosthetic materials or patients with immunosuppressive conditions. It has been described in prosthetic valve endocarditis and in select patients with hematologic diseases but only one prior report as being involved in osteoarticular infections. Case Presentation. We describe a case of postsurgical osteoarticular hardware-related infection by K. schroeteri and discuss a possible association with implanted prosthetic material. Conclusion. Other clinical presentations of K. schroeteri, including reported infection syndromes, antimicrobial susceptibility profiles, and treatment outcomes, are also reviewed.