SHEA 2015 - New Format - Abstracts - May 14-17

I’m excited to announce that I will be co-chairing the 2015 SHEA meeting with Susan Huang. The new format will combine the highly regarded SHEA Basic Training Course in Healthcare Epidemiology with plenary, abstracts and symposia focused on infection prevention topics including long-term care, implementation science, science communication, MDROs, device infections and antibiotic stewardship. A strong emphasis will be placed on networking and mentoring sessions. The meeting will take place in Orlando, Florida (May 14-17th). The abstract site will be open from August 1, 2014 to January 16, 2015 and awards will be given to the top abstracts and posters at all career levels. So, get busy making science and look forward to seeing you in Orlando!

I'm thankful for the CDC

Last night, I stumbled across a link to this piece:

Somehow I read all the way through it before I saw who had written it. Then it all made sense. Like a bad penny, Betsy McCaughey, turns up yet again. Since it's a holiday and I would prefer to stay in a joyful mood, I won't write anything about her, but refer you here to see our previous postings about her.

So on this Thanksgiving Day, I'm thankful for the CDC. Over the course of my career, I have come to know many people who work there, particularly in the hospital infections group. They are simply a great bunch--smart, hard-working, dedicated people who do great work with little recognition. The CDC has been working in the area of healthcare associated infections for over four decades and it's difficult to imagine what healthcare epidemiology would look like today were it not for these folks.

Paul Ewald (video): Are there lessons here for controlling MDROs?

Sometimes, pathogens don't need host mobility for transmission. In these situations, natural selection favors more "virulent" pathogens. That is the general theme of this TED talk given by evolutionary biologist Paul Ewald. I have always been fascinated by this idea in that spread of hospital pathogens does not require host mobility. Could there be other aspects of his theories that could be exploited for infection prevention (or by the pathogen)? Would increased compliance with hand hygiene eventually select for less virulent pathogens. Food for thought. If you are interested in reading more, I recommend his book Evolution of Infectious Diseases.

Click for TED video including iPad/iPhone (non-flash) version: link

Practical Healthcare Epidemiology, 3rd Edition

In a moment of weakness, I agreed to review this textbook for JAMA. This required me to actually read it, something I probably should have considered before I said "yes" to the assignment.

I can’t paste my review here (I’ll link to it when it is published), but I can say that I truly liked this textbook: very readable, makes ample use of tables, figures, and bulleted lists, and the authors have (mostly) not succumbed to the temptation to drown the reader in exhaustive or excessive detail. So the book is, as advertised, very practical. I’m going to recommend it to our ID fellows, and keep a copy for the infection preventionists as well. There is an E-book version that is much cheaper than the hard copy, but my reading of the Adobe Digital Editions website leads me to believe that it is not viewable on either the Kindle or the iPad (which, if true, is a major limitation—Eli, do you know if you can read an Adobe Digital Edition E-book on iPad?).

The review got me thinking about how rarely I ever pull textbooks off my shelves or even access them online. I wonder if the days of the textbook, even the electronic text, are numbered. Not only are there many other sources to turn to for information, but the financial woes of most academic medicine departments no longer allow for professional activity that isn’t linked to some “revenue stream”. So everything except patient care, grant writing, funded research, or reimbursed service activity is de-emphasized. Writing a good book chapter can be a huge time-sink, and the reward for doing so is very small.