HIV and ID Observations

December 12th, 2024

Dr. Thomas O’Brien — Expert in Antimicrobial Resistance and Giant in His Field (Literally)

Dr. Thomas (Tom) O’Brien was born in January 1929, in between the discovery of penicillin (September 1928) and the publication of the findings in a medical journal (May 1929). As noted by his longtime mentee Dr. John Stelling, Tom physically embodied the antibiotic era — quite appropriate for someone best known for his groundbreaking work […]

---

December 8th, 2024

Who’s Going to Get Lenacapavir for HIV Prevention?

At the International AIDS Conference this past summer, Dr. Linda-Gail Bekker brought down the house presenting the results of the PURPOSE 1 trial of twice-yearly injectable lenacapavir for prevention of HIV in women. The results — zero infections out of over 2000 participants — demonstrated clear superiority over oral PrEP with TDF/FTC. The study simultaneously […]

---

November 27th, 2024

Some ID Things to Be Grateful for This Holiday Season — 2024 Edition

The calendar says it’s nearly the fourth Thursday of November, so here in the United States, the Thanksgiving holiday is upon us. It’s a day when we gather with family and friends to express thanks, to eat plenty (usually too much), to watch a bunch of spectacular athletes bash themselves to smithereens in the name […]

---

November 18th, 2024

Marking a Social Media Mass Migration — Until the Next One

Periodically my wife and I will have a bunch of trainees (medical students, or residents, or ID fellows, or a mix) over to dinner. Seated around a big table, with no time-crunch of rounds, pagers, or EPIC orders, we can all get to know one another in this more relaxed setting. Plus, they get free food, […]

---

November 12th, 2024

Musings About a Bruising and an ID Link-o-Rama

We’ll get to the ID links in a moment, but first, allow me to share a few words about the election, which strangely feels like a million years ago. (It was a week. Time is strange.) Instead of rehashing what happened and what’s to come, here’s what I’m offering: some feelings from one specialist in infectious diseases […]

---

October 30th, 2024

The Riveting Conclusion of How PCP Became PJP

Before I get back to the saga of Brave New Name — How PCP Became PJP and Why It Matters, allow me to share that I had some trepidation about publishing this thing. A deep dive down a hole with very high-risk for tularemia exposure (see what I did there?), it veered off topic more than half-baked […]

---

October 22nd, 2024

Brave New Name — How PCP Became PJP and Why It Matters

In the pre-E**n M**k era of the site then known at Twitter, I posted a poll about a very important debate in clinical Infectious Diseases: That’s right. Nearly 900 people took the time, energy, and clicks to weigh in on the critical question of what to abbreviate the well-known opportunistic infection in immunocompromised hosts. Fifteen commented […]

---

October 8th, 2024

Why We Have Antibiotic Shortages and Price Hikes — And What One Very Enterprising Doctor Did in Response

At the start of our weekly case conference, we get announcements from one of our ID pharmacists. New drug approvals, hospital policies, updated guidelines — that kind of thing. But over the last decade or so, the most common topic they’ll comment on is the latest important antibiotic shortage. For those not in medicine, you […]

---

September 19th, 2024

How Electronic Health Records Tyrannize Doctors — ID Doctors in Particular

A paper just appeared in the Journal of General Internal Medicine entitled “National Comparison of Ambulatory Physician Electronic Health Record Use Across Specialties.” The goal of the study was to track clinician workload by specialty, divided into various functions — documentation, chart review, orders, inbox. Importantly, there was no gaming the system. By using Epic’s built-in […]

---

September 6th, 2024

Five Reflections after Attending on General Medicine This Year

Here are five things that occurred to me after a stint on General Medicine this year, where (per our department’s wise policy), I was paired with an experienced and excellent hospitalist to oversee two medical residents, three interns, and two medical students. #1:  Energy. Medical house officers radiate positive energy. Yes, it was summertime, and motivations […]

---