{"id":2067,"date":"2011-11-05T18:26:20","date_gmt":"2011-11-05T22:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/?p=2067"},"modified":"2024-05-13T09:38:23","modified_gmt":"2024-05-13T13:38:23","slug":"a-mysteriosis-about-listeroisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/a-mysteriosis-about-listeroisis\/2011\/11\/05\/","title":{"rendered":"A Mysteriosis about Listeriosis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2011\/11\/Cantaloupe1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-2071\" title=\"Cantaloupe\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2011\/11\/Cantaloupe1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"240\" \/><\/a>For obvious reasons, listeriosis has been much in the news recently. \u00a0The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/listeria\/outbreaks\/cantaloupes-jensen-farms\/110211\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">latest information<\/a> from CDC on the Colorado\u00a0cantaloupe\u00a0outbreak cites 139 cases and 29 deaths.<\/p>\n<p>The recent outbreak aside, however, actual cases of listeriosis are pretty rare. We easily could go months in our hospital without seeing a single case, and we have the largest obstetrical service in New England.<\/p>\n<p>Which brings me to the mystery part:\u00a0 Why is medical student knowledge about listeria so high?<\/p>\n<p>I meet with the medical students to review basics of antibiotics at the beginning of every rotation.\u00a0 Depending on the time of year and the number of prior clinical rotations they\u2019ve done, they have variable amounts of ID knowledge before they get here.<\/p>\n<p>But <em>all<\/em> of them know about listeria. And they know <em>a lot<\/em> about it.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Causative organism? (<em>Listeria monocytogenes &#8212;<\/em> check)<\/li>\n<li>Dietary risk factors?\u00a0 (deli meats, soft cheeses, now cantaloupes &#8212; check)<\/li>\n<li>Population at risk? (pregnant women, transplant patients, and the elderly &#8212; check)<\/li>\n<li>Clinical manifestations? (meningitis, sepsis, gastroenteritis &#8212; check)<\/li>\n<li>Antibiotic of choice?\u00a0 (ampicillin &#8212; check)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>They seem to know way more about listeria than they do about far more common infections, such as <em>Strep pneumoniae<\/em> or Epstein-Barr virus.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the oddest thing. Any proposed explanations for this remarkable expertise would be most welcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For obvious reasons, listeriosis has been much in the news recently. \u00a0The latest information from CDC on the Colorado\u00a0cantaloupe\u00a0outbreak cites 139 cases and 29 deaths. The recent outbreak aside, however, actual cases of listeriosis are pretty rare. We easily could go months in our hospital without seeing a single case, and we have the largest [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,8],"tags":[140,568,569],"class_list":["post-2067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-care","category-infectious-diseases","category-patient-care","tag-cantaloupes","tag-listeria-monocytogenes","tag-listeriosis"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}