HIV and ID Observations

November 13th, 2025

Hot Takes from IDWeek: CDC, COVID, and Two Doses of Dalbavancin

Every so often, you sit down for what’s supposed to be a lighthearted conversation and end up somewhere not just fun, but deeply enjoyable and even profound. That’s what happened when I joined my friends and ID colleagues Drs. Buddy Creech (Vanderbilt, pediatric ID) and Mati Hlatshwayo Davis (Washington University, public health expert) for the […]

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November 7th, 2025

Favorite ID Fellow Consults: Johns Hopkins Edition

Just back from a visit to the Infectious Diseases Division at Johns Hopkins, thanks to the kind invitation of current ID chief Dr. Amita Gupta and her predecessor, Dr. David Thomas. On a personal note, this visit was only a few decades late. When I applied to medical school, Hopkins never invited me to interview […]

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October 23rd, 2025

What a Difference a Year Makes — with Bonus Halloween Video

At last year’s IDWeek — the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America — a group of us veterans in the HIV/ID world wrapped up a busy day of symposia, abstracts, and posters with a lively dinner in Los Angeles. What do I mean by veterans? If you started your ID training before […]

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September 10th, 2025

When Required Learning Modules Surprise You (In a Good Way)

Like most clinicians, I have a checkered history with required online learning modules. You know the drill: click play, get lectured in monotone about hand hygiene or fire safety, then spend the next 8 minutes desperately searching for the fast-forward button, hoping it’s not disabled. My personal low point (or high point, depending on your […]

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August 22nd, 2025

On the Internet, Nobody Read My First Blog

In 2007, during the boom in online blogging, and right before the economy crashed, a medical education company contacted me and three other ID doctors to write a blog about HIV. The pitch was irresistible — write something about HIV on a regular basis (they didn’t say what), and we’ll promote it widely. Oh, and […]

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August 6th, 2025

Does the Fact That AI Is Brilliant at Writing “Learning Objectives” Prove They’re Not Really Needed?

Recently, I was invited to speak at a primary care conference on a terrific topic: “Can’t Miss Diagnoses in ID for the PCP.” Love it. So many great examples come to mind — endocarditis, Lemierre syndrome, vertebral osteomyelitis, acute HIV. A wonderful opportunity to teach about the “rare but there” diagnoses hidden among everyday outpatient […]

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June 27th, 2025

The Mystery of the Isolated Hepatitis B Core Antibody, Solved

(A post inspired by years of doing eConsults, an extremely common query about hepatitis B testing, and the latest BritBox series, “Core Antibody Confidential,” starring a grizzled detective with a faded suit and a haunted past.) Your electronic medical record lists “deficiencies” in health care maintenance for one of your patients, so you order hepatitis […]

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April 30th, 2025

On-Service ID Link-o-Rama — Osmosis Edition

First-year ID fellows this time of year bring a lot to inpatient consult rotations. Years of high-volume inpatient care have sharpened their clinical instincts, and at this point they have an impressive fund of ID knowledge. Plus, the fellow on our current rotation gets along great with everyone — patients and consulting clinicians alike — […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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