Voices of ID

The Voices of ID section of CID features narrative stories from members of the infectious diseases community, focused on how the authors’ work in ID impacts their life, their family, and their friends. Voices of ID highlights personal stories told in authors’ personal voices. Learn more about how to submit for “Voices of ID” here.

The Voices of ID section launched in 2023 with a special collection intended to help the ID community process the impacts of COVID-19. The CID editors sought out narratives from a wide range of contributors, including trainees and senior professionals, academics and private practice providers, clinicians, and researchers. These moving accounts provided a mosaic of the different ways we experienced the pandemic and remind us why so many of us have made a home within the ID community—a group full of thoughtful and brilliant people who are passionate about making this world a better place. Read an introduction to the Voices of ID: COVID-19 collection by Paul Sax, MD, and Sara Bares, MD. All papers from that original collection and subsequent Voices of ID contributions can be found below.

Maintenance of Certification: Is a Knowledge-Based Assessment Really Necessary?

Allan R Tunkel

On 1 November 2023, I took the 10-year recertification examination in infectious diseases (ID) from the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM). This is the fourth time I have taken the exam—first for my initial certification and then every 10 years thereafter. I opted for the 10-year ...

On the Joy of Science and Medicine

Jay V Solnick

Much has been written about the dilemma of the physician-scientist, mostly lamenting their disappearance owing to the long training requirements, student debt, family responsibilities, and reduced federal funding, not to mention the challenge of wearing both hats, and wearing them well. Here, I ...

Start Swinging

Wendy Stead

From a childhood spent playing hundreds of softball games across the fields of central Massachusetts, I have many happy memories of being part of a cohesive team. We experienced wins and losses, exceptional and not-so-exceptional coaches, parents who cheered for us and parents who screamed ...

The Arrivals Gate at Heathrow Airport

Darcy Wooten

There's a great opening from Richard Curtis' 2003 film “Love Actually” (arguably one of the best Rom Coms of all time): Moreover, the number of applicants has not kept pace with the number of available fellowship positions. This year, there were more ID fellowship positions available than there ...

Firsts

Simone Blaser

Thirty years ago, presenting to the hospital with pneumocystis pneumonia was how another generation of young men learned that they had contracted HIV. But, by the time I was in medical training, HIV had become yet another chronic disease. I could count on one hand the number of opportunistic ...

Reflections on COVID-19: Solitude and Isolation

Richard P Wenzel

Many who experience isolation, an objective state, feel loneliness, a subjective sense of a lack of social connection [ 5 ]. The distinction is important: lonely people are at risk of adverse outcomes including heart disease, dementia, and a shorter lifespan. Unfortunately, loneliness is common in ...

Put the Fluoroquinolone Down and No One Gets Hurt

Emily L Heil

It was the last day of their infectious diseases/antimicrobial stewardship rotation as the student pharmacists proudly handed over a carefully wrapped gift box. Inside was a coffee mug with a cartoon of 2 pills dressed as police officers, one of which with a thought bubble that said, “Put down the ...

Infection Control and Prevention During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Vivek Jain

In January 2020, it was clear we would soon begin seeing patients with what we called at the time the novel coronavirus infection. My infection control and -prevention team began to meet with leaders of our medical center and heads of the many operational units at San Francisco General Hospital. We ...

The Belt Parkway

Catherine Diamond

My father was on the phone ( Figure ). “It's not as bad as they say,” he said. “I can beat this thing.” He was in New York, and I was in California. He lived on the border of Nassau and Queens near the worst struck areas of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Residents thought they ...

When Someone Should Do Something About This: How a Cryptococcal Clinical Trialist Became Involved With the COVID-19 Pandemic

David R Boulware

Strange are the opportunities that presented themselves and where the path led during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. It all began when I was at a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study section on 5–6 March 2020 in Washington, DC, expecting to fly to Boston for the Conference ...

COVID and the Fog of War

Michael S Saag

Every military leader describes the effect of the first bullet fired in battle. No matter the training. No matter the preparation. No matter the strategic planning. The beginning of conflict leads inevitably to uncertainty regarding one's own capacity versus the enemy's on the battlefield, a ...

Hostility Unmasked: Scientists on the Frontlines of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Krutika Kuppalli

One night in September 2020, I sat atop my mattress engrossed in work when a buzz from my phone broke the silence. I answered to a gruff male voice who swiftly dove into a conversation about my recent appearance before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, where I had discussed ...

Clinical Laboratory Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Romney Humphries and others

So perhaps, most of all, this reinforcement of microbiology as a vocation is what the early days of the pandemic accomplished so forcefully in me. With its adrenaline highs and sleep-deprived lows, those months as a laboratory medical director were nothing if not visceral. The impact of our ...

The Pandemic Babies

Matthew Shou Lun Lee

I’ve been told that the key to parenthood is learning to accept a certain level of anxiety and uncertainty in daily life. But becoming a new father while working as an infectious diseases (ID) physician at the start of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic? Accepting that level of ...

Family Ties and COVID Lies

Sabina Zawadzka

These are among the daily messages I’ve received from some of my closest family members since the start of the coronavirus disease (COVID) pandemic. My family emigrated from Eastern Europe in the early 90s. As a result of our background, we have always entertained alternate doctrines. Garlic on ...

Embracing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Am I Part of the Picture?

Kap Sum Foong

Growing up in Malaysia as part of a non-English-speaking family, pursuing an internal medicine residency followed by an infectious diseases (ID) fellowship in the United States (US) after completing my medical degree at the University Sains Malaysia was nothing short of a dream come true. Little ...

My Personal Calling

Diane V Havlir

The author, an infectious diseases physician based in Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, shares her personal and professional experiences during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic and how it was influenced by her work with the human immunodeficiency virus/AIDS pandemic.

What Did I Miss?

Tara Vijayan

“You are going to jail .” The rage had reached a critical point. What did I miss? With each undesired outcome, fear and self-doubt would enshroud me for weeks at a time. I held his shaking 45-pound body as I gently tried to convince my then 7-year-old that his 4-year-old sister would not go to ...

Our Parents Were Never Home: Seeing the Pandemic Through Children's Eyes

Giovanni E Marcelin and others

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has taken an unbearable toll on people and families across the globe, with millions dead and hundreds of millions affected in profound ways. In this perspective piece, we center the humanity of the pandemic and its impact on families by telling its story through the eyes of 11-year-old Nathaniel Marcelin and 7-year-old Giovanni Marcelin.

Isolated and Lonely in a Nursing Home During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Deadly Combination for My Mom

Debra A Goff

The call from the nursing home came on a Saturday morning in November 2020: “Your mom is at the end of life. You may now come and have an in-room visit.” I got in my car and started the 7-hour drive to her nursing home in Chicago. While driving, I reflected on my 93-year-old mom’s life and how the ...

Dealing with a Pandemic When You're the Only ID Doctor in Town

Abayomi “Yomi” A Agbebi

I don’t consider my motivations for choosing a career in infectious diseases unique. Like most in the field, I like the science and the clinical challenge but also aspire to make an impact from a social or public health perspective. Those motivations were the primary drivers that led me to an ...

Timing

Neil R H Stone

I could hardly believe it when I walked in on my first day. I had landed my dream job as a consultant (attending) at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, which also serves as the Infectious Diseases (ID) Department for University College Hospital in London. I had trained there, been inspired to ...

Extremes

Andi L Shane

I realized that I was going to be late, again, as traffic was at a standstill. If anything positive resulted from the pandemic, the usually extreme Atlanta traffic was moderately reasonable and commutes were predictable. Except on that day. Realizing that the delays were due to lines of cars ...

Mothers’ Days

Gretchen S Arnoczy

12 May 2020 My kids have breakfast, homemade gifts, and a shelter-at-home Mother's Day planned. I try to enjoy my bacon and egg sandwich, but I’m distracted because my friend Jenny is in labor in an N95 mask. She tested positive for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) 12 days ago. She was 22 weeks ...

Our “Side Hustle”

Erin K McCreary

One of the first emails I sent regarding monoclonal antibodies for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) to my physician cochairs of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) System COVID-19 Therapeutics Committee stated that “I think outpatient coordination of this is beyond us…. wouldn’t ...

Coming Back Home

James B Cutrell

So, what's going on with that COVID-19 virus thing? While I’m sure every infectious diseases (ID) physician heard some version of this question hundreds of times over the past few years, myself included, it often came with a different force and resonance when asked by those from my hometown. You ...

Just Breathe: My First 12 Hours as a Clinician Patient With COVID-19

Nichole N Regan

“Just breathe.” Sounds so simple, doesn’t it? It's automatic, right? Or autonomic, if you want to be really technical about it. It happens without dedicated effort or thought. We breathe throughout the day, while talking, eating, working, scrolling, loving, growing. It even happens at night, ...

Growing Up COVID

Morgan M Goheen

“You have to let me go.” As I pre-rounded on my new patient panel early that morning, one stoic woman stood out. Tiny and grayed, bony and wrinkled, but clearly strong-willed, she was an elderly matriarch, suffering from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia, and working hard to breathe ...

COVID at the Whiteriver Indian Hospital

James B McAuley

Financial support. This work was supported with resources and the use of facilities at the Whiteriver Indian Hospital, located in the Phoenix Area of the Indian Health Service. Of course, all was not perfect. Our community experienced excess non-COVID-19 mortality, as did so many other ...

Personal Stories From a World Turned Upside Down: Introducing the Voices of ID Collection

Sara H Bares and Paul E Sax

There is not a single member of the Infectious Diseases (ID) community whose life was not turned upside down by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We dealt with extraordinary stress and overwhelming workloads. We lost colleagues, patients, and loved ones. We remained isolated from ...