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The American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) has been at the forefront of evidence-based clinical practice guideline development for more than 2 decades. In 2006, CHEST adopted a modified system of Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) to support their rigorous guideline development methodology. The evolution of CHEST's Living Guidelines Model, as well as their collaborative efforts with other organizations, has necessitated improvements in their guideline development methodology. CHEST has made the decision to transition to the standard GRADE method for rating the certainty of evidence and grading recommendations in their evidence-based clinical practice guidelines, a deviation from the modified approach that was adopted in 2006. The standard GRADE approach will be used to grade recommendations in all CHEST guidelines, including updates to previously published guidelines. CHEST's adoption of a standard GRADE approach will ensure that its guideline development methodology is more consistent with that used by other organizations, will better align evidence synthesis methods, and will result in more explicit and easy to understand recommendations., (Copyright © 2016 American College of Chest Physicians. All rights reserved.)

The American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation's Choosing Wisely campaign aims to curb health-care costs and improve patient care by soliciting lists from medical societies of the top five tests or treatments in their specialty that are used too frequently and inappropriately. The American Thoracic Society (ATS) and American College of Chest Physicians created a joint task force, which produced a top five list for adult pulmonary medicine. Our top five recommendations, which were approved by the executive committees of the ATS and American College of Chest Physicians and published by Choosing Wisely in October 2013, are as follows: (1) Do not perform CT scan surveillance for evaluation of indeterminate pulmonary nodules at more frequent intervals or for a longer period of time than recommended by established guidelines; (2) do not routinely offer pharmacologic treatment with advanced vasoactive agents approved only for the management of pulmonary arterial hypertension to patients with pulmonary hypertension resulting from left heart disease or hypoxemic lung diseases (groups II or III pulmonary hypertension); (3) for patients recently discharged on supplemental home oxygen following hospitalization for an acute illness, do not renew the prescription without assessing the patient for ongoing hypoxemia; (4) do not perform chest CT angiography to evaluate for possible pulmonary embolism in patients with a low clinical probability and negative results of a highly sensitive D-dimer assay; (5) do not perform CT scan screening for lung cancer among patients at low risk for lung cancer. We hope pulmonologists will use these recommendations to stimulate frank discussions with patients about when these tests and treatments are indicated--and when they are not.

Study Objective: To determine the complication rate from supervised training bronchoscopy in a single pulmonary fellowship program, and to examine the effects of fellow and faculty experience on this complication rate., Design: A retrospective review of preexisting quality improvement data from one center for the time period July 1, 1991, until June 30, 2005, was performed. The data were stratified based on the fellow year group and the staff experience level. The types of complications were recorded., Setting: The study was performed at an accredited pulmonary and critical care fellowship program at a military medical center in the United States., Participants: Fifty-one pulmonary and critical care medicine fellows and 20 staff supervising physicians performed the bronchoscopies that were included in this study., Results: A total of 3,538 training bronchoscopies were performed during the study period with 73 complications for a complication rate of 2.06%. The most common complication was pneumothorax. The overall complication rates for first-year fellows (1stYFs), second-year fellows, and third-year fellows were not significantly different from the total complication rate. Training bronchoscopies supervised by junior staff had a complication rate not significantly different from that of senior staff. The cumulative complication rate for the first trimester for 1stYFs was 3.1%, whereas the cumulative complication rate for the second plus the third trimester for 1stYFs was 1.57% (p < 0.05)., Conclusions: Training bronchoscopy performed during a pulmonary fellowship is a safe procedure in a supervised setting. Patients undergoing bronchoscopy performed by novice bronchoscopists have an increased complication rate during the first trimester of bronchoscopist training.