HIV and ID Observations

August 25th, 2019

Save the Dates! International Scientific Conferences You Can’t Miss

On this beautiful summer Sunday, I’m sorting through a series of invitations to international scientific meetings. So many options. See, they really want me. And how do I know that my participation will be so important? Just look how personalized the greetings are — clearly intended for me and me alone. I’ve included actual screen shots of the […]

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August 18th, 2019

Choosing the Top Research Papers in HIV Medicine — and Recalling the Joy of Working with a Great ID Fellow

Way back in 2008 — the year I started writing here — I drafted an exceedingly long post listing the top published papers in HIV medicine. Oh how I tortured myself over that thing. How to define “Top”? Most cited? Most clinically important? Most rigorously scientific? Best written? After a while, I just abandoned the monstrosity. It still […]

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August 11th, 2019

The United States Needs Stricter Gun Control Now — and Yes, This Is an ID Issue

In general, I’ve tried to keep this site a pretty happy place. It’s not been difficult. The ID and HIV community includes many smart, like-minded individuals involved in all sorts of interesting and challenging work, both domestically and abroad. As one of our ID fellows recalled, after he did a rotation in our ID clinic during […]

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July 28th, 2019

Really Rapid Review — IAS 2019 Mexico City

As I noted last week — and you did read last week’s post, didn’t you? — the International AIDS conference first took place in Mexico City in 2008. Last week we returned to this sprawling, vibrant city for the 2019 meeting. It was an excellent, well-run conference — with one small complaint. But more on that later… […]

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July 21st, 2019

AIDS Conference Returns to Mexico City, Where We Saw an Underrated, Great Advance in HIV Therapy

If you’ve been an ID or HIV specialist for only a decade or so, the following statement might seem unfathomable to you: Until 2008, there were lots of people with HIV whose medication adherence was perfect — but they still had virologic failure. How could that be? The simple answer is that their virus had too […]

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July 14th, 2019

The House of God Profiled Physician Burnout Long Before We Called It That — Should Aspiring Doctors Still Read It?

Many consider the novel The House of God, written by Samuel Shem (pen name for Stephen Bergman), to be a must-read for any physician or soon-to-be physician. A fictionalized account of his internship year, the book details how the accumulated stress, fatigue, and powerlessness of being a first-year doctor inexorably accumulates during that year — […]

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July 7th, 2019

In Praise of Experienced ID Fellows — and a Dozen On-Service ID Learning Units

A few weeks ago, I cautioned ID fellows about underestimating their hospital’s interns and residents. My message — you were like them not so long ago; they didn’t suddenly all lose their brainpower when you graduated. This ungenerous opinion of house staff may be especially held by experienced fellows, as the accumulating workload of the year […]

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June 30th, 2019

Antibiotic Development Is Broken, Brothers in ID Practice, and This Year’s Winner of the ID-Related Social Media Award

I am currently rounding on the inpatient ID service, the new ID fellows arrive shortly, and Louie needs intensive doggy psychotherapy after yesterday’s strong thunderstorms here in Boston. Busy times! As a result, today’s post has no unifying theme. But what it lacks in cohesiveness it more than compensates in value, as here are three highly interesting […]

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June 23rd, 2019

Advice to Incoming Subspecialty Fellows — Don’t Underestimate or Belittle Your Interns and Residents

Around a million years ago, early during the first year of my ID fellowship, a medical intern consulted me about an elderly patient with a urinary tract infection. Me:  Does she have a catheter? Intern: I don’t know. Me: Has she been admitted before with a UTI? Any cultures? Intern:  I think so — wait, I’m […]

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June 16th, 2019

On Father’s Day, a Tribute to a Father Who Isn’t Allowed to Celebrate Father’s Day

Part 1. My Father and How I Became a Doctor I became a doctor with encouragement from my father. Wait, let me rephrase that to capture what happened more accurately. I became a doctor with a fair amount of pressure from my father. Fresh off an adventure abroad, in my early 20s, I had all kinds of pretentious ambitions […]

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