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 […]

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January 13th, 2019

Are We ID Doctors Really So Unhappy Outside of Work?

Medscape released their 2019 Physician Lifestyle & Happiness Report, and the results aren’t pretty for a certain cognitive specialty, one commonly abbreviated “ID.” Out of 29 medical and surgical specialties, infectious diseases physicians ranked second to last when responding to a 7-point scale rating on their happiness. Only neurologists were gloomier than we were during their off-hours. Rheumatologists […]

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March 18th, 2018

Why with Extremely Resistant Infections, It’s Extremely Important to Consult ID

Since the only procedures most of us Infectious Diseases doctors do with any regularity are biopsies of patient medical records, we have to justify our existence in other ways — such as collecting data on how our expertise improves patient outcomes. There are a bunch of these papers published, with this one being the most widely […]

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April 5th, 2017

Here’s What Happens When You Search “Infectious Diseases” on a Stock Photo Site

Everyone knows a stock image when they see one. The people don’t look real, the activities are staged, and everything has an air-brushed, frozen quality that screams, “This is not a real thing, but we need some copyright-free graphics and this is the best we can do.” Strangely depersonalized group photos, animals in human activities, and computer-created illustrations just […]

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November 6th, 2016

Do ID Clinicians Perpetuate Our Own Stigma?

Infectious Diseases doctors will find this exchange familiar: New person you’re meeting:  What to do you do? ID Doc:  I’m a doctor. New person:  Oh — what kind? ID Doc:  A specialist in Infectious Diseases. New person (making a face, or moving a few feet back, either to be humorous or truly frightened, or both):  Yuck! […]

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October 9th, 2016

Why Guessing An ID/HIV Doctor’s Political Affiliation Is Easy

One of our medical school’s most beloved teachers gives a wonderful lecture on how to give an effective presentation. He offers many invaluable tips for a successful talk, such as 1) Show up early; 2) Know your audience; 3) Don’t read your slides; 4) Never include a slide that you need to preface by saying, “I know you can’t […]

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January 27th, 2016

Here’s an Idea: Justify Your Specialty’s (Low) Relative Salary Using Moral Superiority

In an otherwise excellent piece on recruitment to the ID field from the pages of Infectious Diseases News, comes this: But while inadequate compensation [for ID doctors] may hamper recruitment, it also could prove beneficial to some degree … Reduced salaries filter out the less-passionate applicants in favor of those who are more dedicated to their patients and to […]

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April 27th, 2014

Why ID/HIV Specialists Rank Last in MD Salaries

Here’s a figure from Medscape listing 2013 physician compensation: Now a median of $174,000/year is hardly chump change, so I don’t expect much in the way of sympathy on these data. On the other hand, someone has to to be last, and note that our income hasn’t increased a bit since the last time I commented […]

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September 27th, 2013

Yes! An Economic Justification for ID Specialists

We’re currently in the middle of fellowship interview season, and I overheard the following conversation between two of my colleagues as they contemplated their upcoming interviewees: ID Doctor #1:  He seems like a great candidate — wants to study hospital and community epidemiology of highly drug-resistant bacterial infections, and has already made major contributions to his […]

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August 1st, 2013

Poll: Will There Be A Shortage of HIV Providers?

Over on NEJM Journal Watch — love that new name — I reviewed a paper on the demographics of people living with AIDS in San Francisco. Bottom line — more than half are now older than 50. Implication — that’s so old! First, it really isn’t, unless you compare it to the dismal era 20+ years ago, when […]

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