HIV and ID Observations

April 30th, 2008

Young Doctors “Get a Life” — Whither ID/HIV?

A front-page article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal says that younger physicians (definition:  younger than I am), “intent on balancing work and family,” are choosing specialties that allow them to control their hours.  The content of the article will be familiar, including: The rise of the hospitalist movement A decline in those entering primary care fields The […]

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April 23rd, 2008

Antiretrovirals in the Pipeline: And Then There Were … None?

The flurry of drug approvals that began in 2005 with tipranavir – followed rapidly by darunavir, maraviroc, raltegravir, and most recently etravirine – has been nothing short of astounding. Every experienced HIV clinician now has many patients who are on successful (read: suppressive) treatment for the first time ever. The Vancouver HIV program — wonderfully called […]

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April 17th, 2008

Required Reading: Bat-Related Human Rabies

A group of researchers in Canada have done infectious diseases experts a big favor — they’ve summarized a staggering amount of useful data on bat-related cases of human rabies in a paper just published in Clinical Infectious Diseases. (Note to non-ID specialists: infectious diseases doctors spend a lot of time answering questions about rabies in general […]

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March 20th, 2008

How to Solve at Least One Part of the Healthcare Mess: ADAP for All

The presidential elections have once again made our Byzantine healthcare system a regular feature in the news. A recent film also made quite a splash, and though Michael Moore offered no plausible solutions (Cuba? c’mon!), he certainly made me wonder what I’d do if I had two severed fingers that needed to be reattached and only enough money […]

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