Clinical practice in 2018 was influenced by major medical advancements and updated guidelines that emphasized long-term cardiovascular health and innovative treatments:
If you are looking back at Family Practice in 2018, you are looking at a landmark year where "tried-and-true" methods were heavily challenged by new evidence-based guidelines. For students and clinicians, 2018 was the year of the Guideline Update. It was a difficult year for exams but a transformative year for patient care.
Before COVID-19, 2018 was the peak of the modern anti-vaccine movement. Family physicians spent significant appointment time discussing HPV vaccination (which had lagging rates) and the seasonal influenza vaccine. Outbreaks of measles in New York and Washington State in 2018 put family docs in the difficult position of dismissing families who refused vaccines.
Clinic workflow change: Train your MA to always retake BP manually if the automated reading is >130/80, and document the patient’s home monitor model.