HIV and ID Observations

April 28th, 2019

Even More Fun with Old Medical Images

Loyal readers of this site might note that we periodically stray from incisive, topical coverage of our exciting field of Infectious Diseases, and venture off into subjects that may or may not be ID-related. And good news for fans of this approach, because today it’s time to release our third episode of Fun with Old […]

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April 22nd, 2019

Two New Trials of Combination Therapy for MRSA Bacteremia Answer Some Questions — and Raise Several New Ones

Every clinically active ID specialist, hospitalist, and cardiologist realizes that treatment of bacteremia due to methicillin-resistant Staph aureus (MRSA) is no easy task. In fact, it’s a problem so difficult that persistent bacteremia due to MRSA deserved highlighting here as an “Unanswerable Problem in Infectious Diseases”. I wrote that over 5 years ago, and you […]

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April 14th, 2019

Here’s One “Rule” of Medical Education That Needs Fixing — Or at Least a Little Context

Like any card-carrying ID doctor, I enjoy teaching about antibiotics. Give me a whiteboard (small group), or a PowerPoint set-up (lecture hall), and I’m off and running. Not surprisingly, an important theme of these talks revolves around avoiding antibiotic overuse. Over the years, I’ve collected a few egregious examples of how marketing distorts public perception […]

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April 7th, 2019

New York Times Highlights the Problem of Antimicrobial Resistance — and the Tricky Issue of Disclosure

Right there, on the homepage of today’s New York Times, our national paper of record — Sunday edition, no less! — appears this headline: A Mysterious Infection, Spanning the Globe in a Climate of Secrecy Most of this piece is about Candida auris, the highly resistant fungus that targets our most vulnerable patients — those with […]

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March 31st, 2019

The Problem with Research Posters — and a Bold Approach to Fixing Them

When submitting an abstract to a scientific meeting, you can usually expect one of three outcomes. I’ve listed them below in order of preference, plus the messages the meeting organizers and abstract reviewers are not-so-subtly sending you: Oral Presentation:  Congratulations! Your abstract has been accepted for an Oral Presentation — in other words, the work […]

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March 24th, 2019

Tetanus Case, No More MAC Prophylaxis, Playing in Dirt, and Low-Level Viremia — A National Puppy Day ID Link-O-Rama

In honor of spring (March 20), and the very important National Puppy Day (March 23), here are a bunch of ID and HIV-related recent items for consideration, contemplation, and perusal: A life-threatening case of tetanus in an unvaccinated boy highlights the personal and financial cost of the anti-vaccine movement. How deeply embedded are these false beliefs? […]

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March 18th, 2019

Just 1 Month of TB Preventive Therapy Works for People with HIV in TB-Endemic Regions — How About Other People in Other Places?

There’s a look our patients frequently give us when we tell them that preventive therapy for tuberculosis involves 9 months of treatment. If I were to put that look into words, they would be: Yikes, Doc, 9 months is waaay too long — you must be out of your mind. It’s the “9 months?!?!” face. […]

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March 10th, 2019

Really Rapid Review — CROI 2019 Seattle

As a foot of wet snow bore down on Boston last week — see this post for why that matters — HIV researchers and policy makers headed to Seattle for this year’s Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, or CROI, which took place from March 4-7. And already I was feeling the pressure, based on […]

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March 3rd, 2019

A Few Thoughts on the Day Before CROI — Our Best (and Quirkiest) Scientific Meeting

As I’ve written here numerous times, the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections — or “CROI” (rhymes with “toy”) — is the best of the scientific meetings on HIV. It starts March 4 in Seattle. Bringing together the perfect blend of clinical, translational, and epidemiologic research, CROI consistently boasts the highest density of worthwhile content in […]

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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 […]

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