An ongoing dialogue on HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases,
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 […]
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 complaints: […]
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 B […]
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 — […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
February 20th, 2024
Variability in Consult Volume Is a Major Contributor to Trainee Stress — What’s the Solution?
Back when he was program director of our ID fellowship, Dr. David Hooper would give the applicants a description of our program. One of the key parts was his estimating the workload — in particular, the number of new consults per day. “We average three to four consults a day,” he said. “But there’s a high […]
January 25th, 2024
Printed Medical Textbooks — Going, Going, but Not Quite Gone
Take a look at the things behind my desk at work: cute photos of family and dog a bunch of sentimental objects, gifts from grateful patients or colleagues a smattering of miscellaneous plaques and clocks pictures of our current (awesome) first-year ID fellows and other stuff a bunch of books, several of them many inches thick […]
Paul E. Sax, MD
Contributing Editor
NEJM Journal Watch
Infectious Diseases
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