HIV and ID Observations

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 […]

---

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. […]

---

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. […]

---

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 […]

---

June 17th, 2018

Remembering Robert H. (Bob) Rubin, Father of Transplant Infectious Diseases

During my ID fellowship, Robert (Bob) Rubin was my very first attending. It was the transplant service in July, and Bob and I would round with the surgeons each morning. Early each morning. That was part of it. We needed to be there with them, before they disappeared to the OR. If we weren’t there, he […]

---

May 6th, 2018

Looking Back on a Decade of Blogging About HIV and Infectious Diseases

Last week, Dr. Wendy Armstrong from Emory kindly invited me to spend some time with their smart, energetic ID fellows. (See if you can pick me out of the group in the photo at right — hint, I’m the old guy on the left.) Before the trip, Wendy asked them whether they’d rather hear me give a […]

---

April 29th, 2018

ID Learning Unit: Clinically Important Streptococcal Infections You Need to Know

As mentioned last week, I’m currently attending on the general medical service, a chance to brush up on non-ID clinical skills, and more importantly, to work with smart, energetic house staff and medical students. Not surprisingly, there’s a wide range of clinical ID on this service, and this year we’ve had a rash of streptococcal infections. (Get […]

---

April 22nd, 2018

Some ID Stuff We’re Talking About on Medical Rounds — with Bonus Andy Borowitz Podcast

As an infectious diseases specialist attending on the general medical service each year, I am the beneficiary of a wonderful knowledge exchange. The smart house staff and my generalist co-attending teach me the latest about hyperkalemia, anticoagulation, anemia, alcohol withdrawal, acute renal injury, COPD, atrial fibrillation, pancreatitis, asthma, diabetes, and congestive heart failure — to name […]

---

December 24th, 2017

On-Service Digest, December 2017 — Plus a Holiday Song

You youngsters out there might not believe this, but there was a time when passing out copies of published papers — actual hard-copies — was a major part of the teaching hospital experience. Now that this tree-destroying practice is over, many still regularly cite published studies on rounds. The goal is to provide some guidance and reason […]

---

November 26th, 2017

Should Medical Students Bring Laptops to Lectures?

You can file this under, “Old man yells at cloud,” but here goes. Twice a year now for over a decade, I’ve been lecturing the senior medical students in a therapeutics and pharmacology course. It’s an elective, but it’s very popular — most of the class takes it. Not surprisingly, my topic is Treatment of HIV (duh) […]

---