HIV and ID Observations

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, […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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August 19th, 2024

More on Munich and the 25th Annual International AIDS Conference

Longtime readers may note the absence of this year’s Really Rapid Review™ (RRR) of the latest big HIV conference, the one that just happened in Munich. These RRR posts have been a regular on this site for a gazillion years, give or take a few, with a brief break during the peak of the pandemic. My […]

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July 25th, 2024

Lenacapavir PrEP Trial Brings Down the House at the International AIDS Conference

Yesterday, at the 2024 AIDS Conference in Munich, we experienced one of those thrilling moments you always hope for when attending a scientific conference. Dr. Linda-Gail Bekker, speaking on behalf of the study investigators, presented the data on the PURPOSE-1 study of HIV prevention using twice-yearly injectable lenacapavir; results were simultaneously published in the New England […]

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July 14th, 2024

Should We Continue to Use Contact Precautions for Patients with MRSA?

Back in the early 2000s, I heard about a local hospital that eliminated contact precautions while caring for patients with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). No more required gowns and gloves, or warning signs on the doors, or private rooms for patients known to have MRSA. They planned to track MRSA cases carefully over the next […]

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