{"id":9103,"date":"2019-02-24T19:00:27","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T00:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/?p=9103"},"modified":"2019-03-03T05:53:10","modified_gmt":"2019-03-03T10:53:10","slug":"why-choose-infectious-disease-as-a-medical-specialty-heres-the-beginning-of-my-story-with-bonus-podcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/why-choose-infectious-disease-as-a-medical-specialty-heres-the-beginning-of-my-story-with-bonus-podcast\/2019\/02\/24\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Choose Infectious Diseases as a Medical Specialty? Here’s the Beginning of My Story, with Bonus Podcast"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I got this from gefilte fish? oy …<\/p><\/div>\n

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.<\/p>\n

To begin, understand that my first year of medical school was rough going.<\/p>\n

In hindsight, this wasn’t surprising. After majoring in English during college (with a minor in the Harvard Lampoon<\/a>\u00a0to develop good study habits, ha ha ha), then spending a year abroad teaching, I found medical school’s unrelenting science courses and lecture hours an unpleasant blend of overwhelming and tedious.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, most of my classmates were cruising — including my future spouse<\/a>, who attended all the lectures, took meticulous notes in colored pencil, and aced every test.<\/p>\n

Ouch.<\/p>\n

Any jealousy I felt about her breezing through the first year of med school was more than compensated for by gratitude — hard to imagine I’d have made it to second year without her.<\/p>\n

And so glad I stuck around, because our second-year microbiology course gave me a strong signal that I might actually like this medical business. Led by the articulate and worldly Dr. Arnold Weinberg<\/a>, and ably taught by other superb teachers and section leaders, the course was endlessly stimulating, the very opposite of the metabolic pathways I had (barely) memorized during first-year biochemistry. I looked forward to every microbiology lecture and every lab.<\/p>\n

I loved this course for multiple reasons:<\/p>\n