Division of Infectious Diseases
COVID-19 – What is UNMC ID doing?
Although it has not been officially declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), as of this morning, there were 81, 191 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 2,768 deaths worldwide. To date, 57 of these cases are within US borders, and there are increasing cases throughout the world. UNMC & Nebraska Medicine have had […]
Feb 26, 2020
Freedom is in the Air: My Visit to Sudan, a Born-again Country
Here at UNMC ID, we are thrilled to share the global, and personal efforts, of our faculty. Please take a moment to read this excellent piece by Dr. Nada Fadul; Associate Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases, UNMC Sudan felt different this time. It was the middle of December 2019, the first anniversary of the Sudanese […]
Feb 25, 2020
Helping Our Patients Beyond the Clinic
As we start a new year, we thought it would be appropriate to share a story that reminds me of what is fundamental to a life in medicine: helping those we have the power to help. The Nebraska Medicine Specialty Care Center houses our HIV clinic as well as a hygiene pantry that stocks supplies […]
Feb 25, 2020
Introducing AMDA UTI Consensus Statement for Diagnosis, Treatment and Prevention of Urinary Tract Infections
The AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long Term-Care Medicine convened a UTI consensus statement workgroup in 2017 to outline best practices for the management of UTI in post-acute and long-term care (PALTC) settings. The workgroup consisted of various national and international subject matter experts and was chaired by UNMC faculty Dr. Muhammad Salman Ashraf, who […]
Feb 18, 2020
How Should Clinicians Respond to International Public Health Emergencies?
Dr. Angela Hewlett, Medical Director of the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit, recently co-authored an article that appeared in the AMA Journal of Ethics entitled; “How Should Clinicians Respond to International Public Health Emergencies?” Dr. Hewlett shared a brief summary of the paper below: The paper is a case-based analysis of issues surrounding clinicians who respond to international public health […]
Feb 10, 2020
About our First Year Fellows – Mark Ridder, MD
Tell us about your current position I a first year fellow of infectious disease at University of NE Medical Center. For the next 2 years I’ll be learning all I can from experts in the field for the diagnosis, treatment, and management of a wide variety of infectious diseases ranging from parasites and fungal disease […]
Feb 4, 2020
Should We Add Daptomycin to β-Lactams in the Initial Treatment of Methicillin-susceptible S. aureus Bacteremia?
Content from Dr. Razan El Ramahi, originally posted in IDSA journal club. Despite the availability of active antibiotics to treat Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (SAB), controversy still exists regarding the optimal antibiotic strategy and whether combination antibiotics improve outcomes. In small clinical studies, a possible benefit was observed by adding daptomycin to β-lactams in the treatment of SAB. However, […]
Jan 28, 2020
Novel Coronavirus – What You Need to Know Now
Content courtesy of Dr. Angela Hewlett Coronaviruses are common respiratory pathogens, and generally cause mild symptoms of the ‘common cold’. However, other coronavirus strains have been known to cause outbreaks that lead to more severe disease like pneumonia, and even death. Examples of these include SARS and MERS, which are both coronaviruses with mortality rates […]
Jan 23, 2020
Blood culture contamination–it’s a big deal
Blood cultures are a key diagnostic test to detect bacteremia and appropriately treat patients with sepsis and are performed approximately 30 million times in the United States yearly. Unfortunately, contamination of blood cultures occurs in the 0.5% to 5% of samples (approximately 25% of positive blood cultures are due to contamination) which leads to inappropriate […]
Jan 21, 2020
Antimicrobial Stewardship & Sepsis – A Great Debate
Optimal management of sepsis has long-been a holy grail in medicine. One area that remains fraught with debate is how to effectively balance the need for emergent antimicrobial administration with principles of antimicrobial stewardship. A recent Point–Counterpoint series on “Should Broad-Spectrum Antibiotics Be Routinely Administered to All Patients with Sepsis as Soon as Possible”published in […]
Jan 14, 2020
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