Hooked on ID with Amit M. Sharma, MD, MPH
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“Soap, water and common sense are the best disinfectants.” - William Osler.
In many ways, infectious disease is all about common sense. One must take a complete history, perform a detailed physical examination and deduce the ailment. Therefore, infectious disease is an ideal subspecialty for a young physician looking to “treat” his patients rather than “manage” his patients.
I did my medical school in India, where infectious diseases are in plenty but ID physicians are scarce. Treating conditions like typhoid, malaria and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, as well as supervising mass vaccination responses were second nature to us back home in India. However, we could not make a significant impact on incidence and prevalence. Fortunately, my stint as medical officer in the Indian Army exposed me to the public health aspect of infectious diseases. In the U.S., I was fortunate to be trained under the mentorship of retired army doctors like renowned virologist Timothy P. Endy, MD, and renowned malaria expert Mark Polhemus, MD. I knew I wanted to be like them one day.
Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic posed more questions to us ID doctors and required us to be on our toes. Never has there been more reliance and dependence upon the expertise of an ID physician.
Finally, antimicrobial resistance is a serious problem. In the future, the role of ID physicians will be even more critical as we try to race against time to stem the tide of antimicrobial resistance. I am reminded of the Terminator movie franchise — every ID physician is John Connor, who will be needed to save humanity from multidrug-resistant bugs.
— Amit M. Sharma, MD, MPH
Clinical assistant professor, Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine
Associate, infectious disease, Geisinger Community Medical Center
Scranton, Pennsylvania