Benjamin P. Geisler
ben-geisler.com
Benjamin P. Geisler
@ben-geisler.com

Stipendiat in Oslo, 🇳🇴 | prior hospitalist | Stuck between 3 continents/still fresh off the boat | RT≠opinion≠others'

Economics 45%
Medicine 32%

.. and a non-inferiority trial in shock all-comers (although this has already crept into practice -though that's dependent on center and attending- so this trial is prolly less of a surprise)

Whoa: two potentially paradigm-shifting new shock trials - one in early septic shock..
ANDROMEDA-SHOCK-2 is up next…. this looks at personalised phenotype-based, capillary refill time (CRT) targeted resuscitation in early septic shock, comparing to standard resuscitation. It is large (86 centres, 19 countries).

Read it free from JAMA: tinyurl.com/mjcj8s5w
#Lives2025 #criticalcare
Hemodynamic Resuscitation Targeting Capillary Refill Time in Early Septic Shock
This randomized clinical trial examines whether a personalized hemodynamic resuscitation protocol targeting capillary refill time was more effective than usual care in patients with early septic shock...
tinyurl.com
EVERDAC is hot off press @esicm.bsky.social #Lives2025 in @nejm.org open access currently:
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....
Reports that in (non-blinded trial) patients with shock, management *without* early a-line insertion was noninferior to early catheter insertion…. #Lives2025 #criticalcare
Deferring Arterial Catheterization in Critically Ill Patients with Shock | NEJM
In patients with shock, whether noninvasive blood-pressure monitoring is an effective alternative to the recommended use of an arterial catheter is uncertain. In this multicenter, open-label, nonin...
www.nejm.org

Leo Celi's latest in Nature Medicine: "Teaching machines to doubt."

As we rush to deploy A.I. in healthcare, teaching algorithms to recognize their own limitations isn't just good science, it's a patient safety thing.
Worth your time.
Teaching machines to doubt
Nature Medicine - We must build safeguards against AI’s most dangerous feature: its ability to stop us thinking critically.
www.nature.com

Today I learned that AOL still has an email service (from the John Bolton indictment)

Professor Sue Goldie is a masterful educator and storyteller.

She decided to share her diagnosis on her own terms and brings up things here about Parkinson's (and about triathlons as a PD treatment) that no one ever does

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Sue Goldie Has Parkinson’s Disease
An acclaimed researcher is an expert at explaining complicated problems. Now she has to confront the most vexing question: What is happening to her?
www.nytimes.com

A stress test with a slight chance of MI or death... 😕

Do patients truly understand the risks we communicate?

European Hospital features discussion on medical risk communication across different cultures & systems.
“Very rarely a chance of heart attack or death” – Wait, what?
Hospitalists frequently discuss the risks associated with tests, treatments, and/or surgical procedures with their patients. But is everyone in the clear on what a “slight risk of complications” actually means? A session on the meaning of risk to patients and how to effectively communicate risk was discussed at SHM Converge 2025, the annual meeting of the Society of Hospitalist Medicine held in Las Vegas in April.
healthcare-in-europe.com

Pure gold from Adam Rodman on overconfidence of reasoning models. Does this mirror incompetent + overconfident residents?

x.com/AdamRodmanMD/s... (yes, X, but worth your while)

🌟 Amazing opportunity! 🌟
Our EU project partner @erasmusuni seeks Associate Prof in Health Economics & Modelling! 📈🏥 Join 100+ health economists in Rotterdam 🇳🇱

Check it out here and apply today:
www.academictransfer...

#HealthEconomics #HEOR #AcademicJobs
Associate professor (UHD) in Health Economics and Modelling (Fulltime/permanent)
We are seeking an experienced health economist with proven modelling and analytics skills to join our HTA department. The successful candidate will lead and collaborate on high-impact research projects, develop grant applications, supervise PhD and …
www.academictransfer.com

Bottom Line: Extended low-dose apixaban significantly reduces recurrent VTE in patients with provoked VTE + enduring risk factors, with low major bleeding risk. This will likely change practice and guidelines.

www.nejm.org/doi/ful...

8/8
Apixaban for Extended Treatment of Provoked Venous Thromboembolism | NEJM
The appropriate duration of anticoagulation for venous thromboembolism (VTE) in patients who have a transient provoking factor (e.g., surgery, trauma, or immobility) and concomitant enduring risk f...
www.nejm.org

Clinical Implications: The 10% recurrence rate in placebo group suggests "provoked" VTE with enduring risk factors may have similar recurrence risk to "unprovoked" VTE. Simple provoked vs unprovoked categorization may be insufficient for treatment decisions.

7/8

Study Population: Mean age 59.5 years, 57% female. Most common provoking factors: surgery (33.5%), immobility (31.3%), trauma (19.2%). Most common enduring risk factors: chronic inflammatory disease (52.2%), obesity BMI≥30 (48.2%), atherosclerotic CVD (29.3%).

6/8

Safety Events: Major bleeding: 0.3% (apixaban) vs 0% (placebo). Clinically relevant non-major bleeding: 4.8% vs 1.7% (HR 2.68, P=0.06). One major bleed was a 3mm subdural hematoma after horse fall - no hospitalization required.

5/8

Primary Results: Symptomatic recurrent VTE occurred in 1.3% (apixaban) vs 10.0% (placebo)

- an 87% relative risk reduction (HR 0.13, 95% CI 0.04-0.36, p<0.001)

Number needed to treat = 12

4/8

Study Design: HI-PRO was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

600 patients with provoked VTE + ≥1 enduring risk factor received apixaban 2.5mg BID vs. placebo for 12 months after completing ≥3 months of initial anticoagulation.

3/8

Background: Current guidelines recommend 3-6 months of anticoagulation for provoked VTE (surgery, trauma, immobility).

What about patients with enduring risk factors like obesity, chronic lung disease, or autoimmune disorders?

2/8

🧵 HI-PRO trial from @escardio: low-dose apixaban _long-term_ for "provoked" VTE

This will likely be practice-changing: HI-PRO challenges the current practice re: anticoagulation duration for "provoked" VTE

1/8 📊

6/7
🔍 Learn more about the projections (incl. brilliant viz) directly from the Guardian article:
www.theguardian.com/...

Thoughts?
Europe’s population crisis: see how your country compares – visualised
How anti-immigration politics across the EU clashes with demographic reality
www.theguardian.com

5/6
⚖️ Migration is one factor shaping Europe’s future. Employment rates, pension reform & healthcare capacity also matter. Some rural areas face depopulation, but newcomer resettlement projects show potential to revitalize communities.

4/6
🏥 European health systems depend heavily on foreign-trained doctors. Norway, Ireland, Switzerland, UK & Sweden have 30-44% foreign-trained doctors.

🇳🇴 relies on Norwegians educated abroad due to limited domestic medical school slots.

3/6
💸 Tax burdens are rising as pension & elderly care costs grow. These demographic trends will put greater fiscal pressure on governments & societies in decades ahead.

2/6
📉 Low birth rates drive native population decline. Without migration, the EU population could fall from 447M today to ~295M by 2100. The share of 65+ could rise from 21% to 36%, increasing care burdens & government spending.

1/6
🌍 Europe faces a major demographic challenge. By 2100, the 🇪🇺’s population may shrink 6% with migration, but over 1/3 without it. Countries like Italy, Germany & France could face economic pressures from ageing populations & shrinking workforces.

#Demographics #Europe

🧠💡 Proud to share AI predicting arterial oxygen during brain surgery with 84% accuracy - no extra arterial sticks!

Looking forward to validation.
Comparing supervised machine learning algorithms for the prediction of partial arterial pressure of oxygen during craniotomy - BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making
Background and Objectives Brain tissue oxygenation is usually inferred from arterial partial pressure of oxygen (paO2), which is in turn often inferred from pulse oximetry measurements or other non-invasive proxies. Our aim was to evaluate the feasibility of continuous paO2 prediction in an intraoperative setting among neurosurgical patients undergoing craniotomies with modern machine learning methods. Methods Data from routine clinical care of lung-healthy neurosurgical patients were extracted from databases of the respective clinical systems and normalized. We used recursive feature elimination to identify relevant features for the prediction of paO2. Six machine learning regression algorithms (gradient boosting, k-nearest neighbors, random forest, support vector, neural network, linear model with stochastic gradient descent) and a multivariable linear regression were then tuned and fitted to the selected features. A performance matrix consisting of standard deviation of absolute errors (σae), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), adjusted R2, root mean squared error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE) and Spearman’s ρ was finally computed based on the test set, and used to compare and rank each algorithm. Results We analyzed N = 4,581 patients with n = 17,821 observations. Between 5 and 22 features were selected from the analysis of the training dataset comprising 3,436 patients with 13,257 observations. The best algorithm, a regularized linear model with stochastic gradient descent, could predict paO2 values with σae = 86.4 mmHg, MAPE = 16 %, adjusted R2 = 0.77, RMSE = 44 mmHg and Spearman’s ρ = 0.83. Further improvement was possible by calibrating the algorithm with the first measured paO2/FiO2 (p/F) ratio during surgery. Conclusion PaO2 can be predicted by perioperative routine data in neurosurgical patients even before blood gas analysis. The prediction improves further when including the first measured p/F ratio, realizing quasi-continuous paO2 monitoring.
bmcmedinformdecismak.biomedcentral.com

📢 PhD in Health Economics @ University Of Oslo! Fully paid 3yr position in MoPeK project on sustainable municipal health staffing. Join our dynamic research environment & contribute to real health policy change.
Apply by Sept 30!
#PhD #HealthEconomics
PhD stipendiat i helseøkonomi (284854) | Universitetet i Oslo
Stillingstittel: PhD stipendiat i helseøkonomi (284854), Arbeidsgiver: Universitetet i Oslo, Søknadsfrist: tirsdag 30. september 2025
www.jobbnorge.no

This conference has an intriguing format: the discussant summarizes the paper (circulated beforehand & assumed read) and then gives constructive feedback. The author then responds by answering questions and concerns. Then the audience serves as an additional sounding board