HIV and ID Observations

September 15th, 2019

A Former Medical School Dean Invents a False Dichotomy in Curriculum Content, and Advises Physicians to Stay in Their Lane

Over on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, a piece appeared last week with the following provocative title and subtitle: Take Two Aspirin and Call Me by My Pronouns At ‘woke’ medical schools, curricula are increasingly focused on social justice rather than treating illness. Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, former associate dean of curriculum at the […]

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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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July 14th, 2019

The House of God Profiled Physician Burnout Long Before We Called It That — Should Aspiring Doctors Still Read It?

Many consider the novel The House of God, written by Samuel Shem (pen name for Stephen Bergman), to be a must-read for any physician or soon-to-be physician. A fictionalized account of his internship year, the book details how the accumulated stress, fatigue, and powerlessness of being a first-year doctor inexorably accumulates during that year — […]

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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 23rd, 2019

Advice to Incoming Subspecialty Fellows — Don’t Underestimate or Belittle Your Interns and Residents

Around a million years ago, early during the first year of my ID fellowship, a medical intern consulted me about an elderly patient with a urinary tract infection. Me:  Does she have a catheter? Intern: I don’t know. Me: Has she been admitted before with a UTI? Any cultures? Intern:  I think so — wait, I’m […]

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February 24th, 2019

Why Choose Infectious Diseases as a Medical Specialty? Here’s the Beginning of My Story, with Bonus Podcast

Forgive the autobiographical nature of this post, but here’s a recap on how I started down the the path to becoming an ID doctor. To begin, understand that my first year of medical school was rough going. In hindsight, this wasn’t surprising. After majoring in English during college (with a minor in the Harvard Lampoon to develop good […]

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October 21st, 2018

A Day in the Life of the Academic Assistant Professor of Medicine Who Wakes Up at 5:30 a.m. to Get Her Kids to School, Takes the Bus to Work, Answers Emails, Completes Online Required Modules, and Fills Out Disability Forms for Her Patients

(Inspired by a recent peculiar article about a Bay Area tech superstar.) Dr. Camilla Gormley is always on the move. From the moment her alarm wakes her at 5:30 a.m. to prepare breakfast and school lunches for her three kids, to the time 16-plus hours later when she can finally rest her head on her pillow, Dr. […]

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October 2nd, 2018

Winner of Latest Cartoon Contest Proves Again That We ID Specialists Are a Different Breed

It is with a mixture of professional pride and embarrassment that I hereby present the winner of our last ID Cartoon Caption Contest: Yikes. Talk about inside jokes. Though the second-place finisher “Ah, no, I prescribed the AEROSOLIZED, not PARASOL-ized form” mounted a late charge, the geeky reference to Listeria monocytogenes and its “umbrella motility” held out for the win. […]

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July 15th, 2018

On-Service Digest, July 2018 — with Special Section Just for Staph aureus

I’m currently on-service for the inpatient ID consult team, and this is July. At a teaching hospital.  Here’s where some would play scary music. After all, the interns and fellows have just started! YIKES! But no scary music for me — I love working with the July newbies. Because whatever they lack in experience or efficiency, they more than make up […]

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