Jefferson Antithrombotic Therapy Service, Department of Internal Medicine, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA, USA. leon.menajovsky@jefferson.edu
Venous thromboembolism (VTE), which includes both deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, is a well-known risk in surgical patients, but it is also a significant and often unrecognized source of mortality and morbidity in hospitalized medical patients. The need for routine prophylaxis in the general medical population is increasingly supported.