An ongoing dialogue on HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases,
July 28th, 2019
Really Rapid Review — IAS 2019 Mexico City
As I noted last week — and you did read last week’s post, didn’t you? — the International AIDS conference first took place in Mexico City in 2008. Last week we returned to this sprawling, vibrant city for the 2019 meeting. It was an excellent, well-run conference — with one small complaint. But more on […]
July 21st, 2019
AIDS Conference Returns to Mexico City, Where We Saw an Underrated, Great Advance in HIV Therapy
If you’ve been an ID or HIV specialist for only a decade or so, the following statement might seem unfathomable to you: Until 2008, there were lots of people with HIV whose medication adherence was perfect — but they still had virologic failure. How could that be? The simple answer is that their virus had […]
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 — […]
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 […]
Paul E. Sax, MD
Associate Editor
NEJM Clinician
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