The Beginning
Just wanted to tell the origins for this blog. I was listening to an NYTimes podcast one of those incredible magnificent spring days in California with my partner when she started saying that those ideas in the podcast were not new and that she had the same train of thought for at least 2 years now. I questioned and even challenged her to suggest that she should start writing up those ideas as one day she might end up being a NYTimes journalist, as a joke in order to make the point that we have plenty of ideas in our minds but is not very easy to actually explain them or even write them up. While saying those words, I then realized that I was been an hypocrite, first because I haven't done anything to actually capture my thoughts and second, I've also shared that feeling of having good ideas in my mind but never been able to actually come up with a good way of expressing those ideas. Then I realized that in this era of rapid, fast speed pace social media and reels, I should take my time to reflect and maybe start writing about the passion that I have for my profession, Medicine and especially Infectious Diseases (ID).
I'm currently a fellow in Infectious Diseases, and I don't pretend to provide any groundbreaking clinical research results in this posts. I just wanted to open a space for reflection, especially in what I've learned by working and listening from my colleagues and attendings , in clinical practices of Infectious Diseases and how even our best evidence is still subject to controversy and clinical interpretation. I'm not sure about my other co-fellows at other programs but I'm pretty sure everyday there are clinical scenarios that are managed very differently even having very similar characteristics (part of all those cognitive biases that we are constantly subject to). This might be just an isolated reflection page for me, but definitely I feel this could help with gaining more introspection on current knowledge and missing clinical date that would be important to establish in the future. I intend to revisit daily clinical ID topics such that are relevant for us in training and those facing daily clinical practice such as clinical syndromes, etiologic agents, antimicrobials, etc...
My hope is that one day this could persist and hopefully many people in clinical ID training can be involved in this space so we can continue to debate and reflect on what I think is the most exciting part of being an ID physician, the nuances!
Attached, a picture of the northern Californian spring afternoon to get rolling!
Of note, the views and opinions expressed in this blog just represent my own views and do not represent of the views of my training institution nor other institutions.
- Alvaro