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 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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April 28th, 2019

Even More Fun with Old Medical Images

Loyal readers of this site might note that we periodically stray from incisive, topical coverage of our exciting field of Infectious Diseases, and venture off into subjects that may or may not be ID-related. And good news for fans of this approach, because today it’s time to release our third episode of Fun with Old Medical Images.  […]

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April 22nd, 2019

Two New Trials of Combination Therapy for MRSA Bacteremia Answer Some Questions — and Raise Several New Ones

Every clinically active ID specialist, hospitalist, and cardiologist realizes that treatment of bacteremia due to methicillin-resistant Staph aureus (MRSA) is no easy task. In fact, it’s a problem so difficult that persistent bacteremia due to MRSA deserved highlighting here as an “Unanswerable Problem in Infectious Diseases”. I wrote that over 5 years ago, and you know what? […]

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April 7th, 2019

New York Times Highlights the Problem of Antimicrobial Resistance — and the Tricky Issue of Disclosure

Right there, on the homepage of today’s New York Times, our national paper of record — Sunday edition, no less! — appears this headline: A Mysterious Infection, Spanning the Globe in a Climate of Secrecy Most of this piece is about Candida auris, the highly resistant fungus that targets our most vulnerable patients — those with weakened […]

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