So many great mentorship pearls at UCSF Department of Medicine Grand Rounds today! Congrats to the phenomenal @lekshmimd.bsky.social on a fantastic talk

Hey out there -- if you have information about the job cuts at FDA, CDC, NIH or HHS at large, we'd love to hear from you. We're looking, in particular, for information about exactly what cuts were made. You can reach me on Signal, the encrypted messaging system, at MattHerper.92. DMs are open.

#1/ Starting NOW Hybrid on Zoom & In-Person - @ucsfhealth.bsky.social #UCSFMGR w/ Dr. @annieluet.bsky.social on HIV in 2025: What's New, What's Next? Moderated by Dr. @bobwachter.bsky.social. Stay tuned for Live-Sky-ing of the learning pearls.

Spontaneous pulmonary-twist secondary to Legionnaire’s disease Apparently "pulmonary twist" is a thing. In this case, in the context of Legionella pneumonia, the L upper lobe became twisted & necrotic, apparently due to infiltration and increased weight of lingula link.springer.com/article/10.1...

A spine surgeon named Jack? Oh you mean a Lumbar Jack

Guess I’m just feeling a bit sedimental

Wish I still got to spin urine sometimes

I’ve heard of robots replacing physicians but this seems a bit of a stretch

Got into a debate with nephrology about whether contrast-induced nephropathy is real, and I’ve never felt so alive

Children receive so many more vaccines these days. Is this ok? Short answer: This is ok. Today’s vaccines target more diseases and do so more efficiently than older vaccines. Longer answer: ⬇️ 1/7 @kkjetelina.bsky.social @meganranney.bsky.social @jasonlschwartz.bsky.social @enirenberg.bsky.social

We’ve decided to end the peer review process; instead, we will just be asking random people on the street what they think

🚨📣🚨📣 We're hiring! Open search for Associate Director of Infection Prevention at UW Medical Center Work in amazing academic environment with a phenomenal team. Fantastic quality of life. Did I mention protected time for scholarly activities? DM w q's apply.interfolio.com/160509 #IDsky

Relatedly, I’m curious how many of us in healthcare are eldest daughters. Wish there was a poll function on BlueSky!

This study (from 2015) entailed building a vomiting machine to show norovirus can be airborne. It still haunts my dreams, and now it can haunt you too! You’re welcome www.science.org/content/arti...

If people continue to be infected with #H5N1 #birdflu, some will die. One has: the person in Louisiana who was infected by poultry and/or wild birds in a backyard flock. Developing story. www.statnews.com/2025/01/06/b...

So, you may ask, why do I get so angry about the new liberal spin on RFK Jr, as in, "he gets some things right, so let's collaborate on those" or "we have to work with him because he has a huge following we need to reach"? Because I've seen this movie before. 1/

Key point from the NEJM article on the #H5N1 case in Canada: The NP swab was (+) for Flu A but (-) for A(H1) and A(H3) on the BioFire Respiratory Panel. Remember- Routine Flu A testing won’t confirm #H5N1. If the subtype is unidentifiable, important to test for H5N1. www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

It’s a beautiful day to donate to @propublica.org

Starting the new year with high hopes and even higher glucose

Infectious disease MD & professionally trained journalist here! 🚨 The contents of this article & the fact that it was given space in The Atlantic is a dangerous display of both-sides-ism. 🚨 The “fear” of RFK flippantly mentioned? Actually a well-founded concern re: a resurgence of deadly diseases

Update: Fried potatoes in biryani is a ✨love language✨

Report in NEJM describing the first critically ill adolescent with #H5N1 D1.1 (aka #BirdFlu) in North America. A 13 yo rapidly progressed from mild symptoms to respiratory & renal failure. She survived thanks to IMV + ECMO + CRRT. Scary stuff. 📄 www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

My New Year’s resolution? 1920x1080

In today’s MMWR, largest blastomycosis outbreak in 🇺🇸: -162 cases in a single paper mill in Michigan (20% of all employees) -Primarily 🫁 symptoms -18 (12%) 🏥, 1 death -0 environmental samples of mill were PCR pos for blasto #IDSky www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes...

It’s not raw water — it’s ✨ Sewage Lite™️✨

Infectious disease MD & professionally trained journalist here! 🚨 The contents of this article & the fact that it was given space in The Atlantic is a dangerous display of both-sides-ism. 🚨 The “fear” of RFK flippantly mentioned? Actually a well-founded concern re: a resurgence of deadly diseases

As we head into 2025, I'll be sharing 25 MEDICAL HISTORY OBJECTS starting with... #1) 5,000-year-old prosthetic eye made of bitumen paste with lines radiating out from iris. Worn by a 6’ tall woman (possibly a priestess), found near the city of Zabol in Iran. The eye would have been painted gold.

What’re folks’ first-day-off-service (fun) rituals? Catching up on emails doesn’t count…

Fried potatoes is a love language

The Missouri tourism department isn’t called Missouri Loves Company, and I think that’s a missed opportunity

#MedSky #LongCovid #NeuroSky #PsychSky NEW & IMPORTANT Evidence that mitochondrial dysfunction is a major consequence of #COVID19 infection Impaired mito➡️ accumulation of reactive oxygen species➡️ endothelial dysfunction➡️ toxic molecules cross blood-brain barrier www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Opening a coffee shop in the hospital... Wernicke Korsakoffeehouse

Science affords us the luxury of forgetting the impact of infectious diseases - In the 1st half of the 19th century 40-50% of children in US did not make it past the age of 5 - TB killed 1 in 7 people in US and Europe - smallpox killed 80% of infected children theconversation.com/infectious-d...

"everything she was about to go through — daily radiation therapy, hospital stays, chemotherapy infusions, infections, starvation and constant pain, without assurance that any of this would work — could have been avoided." #HPV + #MedSky + #OncSky. www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

“I’m just doing this to prevent a DVT” - this guy, possibly

Mapping the Geographic Distribution of Dimorphic Mycoses Using a US Commercial Insurance Database @julioczuniga1.bsky.social @fungaldoc.bsky.social academic.oup.com/ofid/advance... More data to show that the geographic range of dimorphic fungal infections is much wider than taught in med school

You may have heard that it took a long time for penicillin to be scaled up. What about other antibiotics? How long did it take for them to be mass produced and introduced clinically, after they were discovered? I created a visualization of this here:

Here are 5 top things I'll be watching closely in global public health in 2025: 1. H5N1 outbreak trajectory 2. Impact of RFK Jr. on infectious dz control and vaccines in the US. 3. The mpox outbreak in Africa 4. Expanded access to Lenacapavir for HIV PrEP. 5. The US withdrawal from the WHO.

Lots of talk about New Year’s Eve, but no mention of New Year’s Adam. What don’t they want you to know? Think about it 🧐

The audacity of this comma splice is really something else

Kind of bonkers that literally anyone in the healthcare field is considered too biased to serve on Mangione’s jury (from what I understand). Like, it’s just accepted that the people trying to actually just take care of patients essentially uniformly despise UHC and other big insurance offenders

Younger kid fell asleep in the stroller while walking in the snow, so we are basically Danish now

Auricle: Superhero who can hear into the future

A good hand surgeon is really thumb thing special

Adding Midwest colloquialisms to my consult notes is a goal for 2025

Interesting idea, but TTEs are noninvasive and endocarditis is bad to miss. Hard to know how much this would really change my practice. Perhaps could add this to criteria to consider for IE risk stratification (prolonged bacteremia, community-acquired infexn, etc)

Whenever I see parents of kids younger than mine struggling on a plane, and trying their best (which is 99% of the time) I like to tell them they’re doing a good job, and the response is usually pretty incredible

Interviewer: Can you explain this gap in your résumé? Doctor: Sorry, no, I can’t read my handwriting either

Story time: We had a patient admitted to the PICU admitted with recurrent fevers despite multiple broad spectrum IV antibiotics. They could not communicate well at baseline and their blood cultures were negative. After a few days we decided to consult ID. 1/n

A group of ID specialists is a colony forming unit (CFU)