Infectious Diseases... does this description fit?

[Sketch]

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I've been looking at specializing after med. school in Infectious Diseases (I'm currently in grade 12). Before this I was looking at Epidemiology because it seemed like it was an exciting career... but looking more into ID it seems that the two careers tie together. When the SARS problem surfaced did the ID Docs have an active role in that?
I'm sure that the Epidemiologists were trying to isolate the problem and so forth but were the ID docs doing? I'm just trying to get a better idea of what they do exactly and if they're job changes quite often or if it's the same thing over and over again (I'm not even sure if that can be said about medicine since its ever changing)

Anyway, any help is appreciated. I'm looking for speculations; it doesn't need to be facts.

Thanks!

 

[Sketch]

Also, in addition to the question above I wanted to know if I did Internal Medicine and specialized in Pediatric Infectious Diseases... would that be considered as 2 things or could I still pursue an MPH at the same time?

Thanks!

 

[Sketch]

Can anyone help out?

Thanks.

 

[AJM]

Well, many ID docs are also epidemiologists -- the two are not mutually exclusive. There are many ID specialists who work for the NIH and academic medical centers who are designated 'first responders' to infectious epidemics and bioterrorism events. Many of these ID docs also have maters in epi or an MPH - they will often get their degrees during ID fellowship. These kinds of outbreak events don't happen that often, so the ID docs will usually do regular ID stuff when there is no epidemic or whatnot going on.

During the SARS outbreak, the hospital I was at had a number of patients with the SARS virus. (our area was pretty affected -- not nearly as bad as Toronto, though). Although the poor medicine interns (myself being one of them 🙁 ) were really at the front lines admitting all these patients, not really knowing who would have confirmed SARS and who would have just run-of-the-mill pneumonia, and wondering if we had been exposed to the virus, the ID docs took the most active and high-profile role in the hospital. They would evaluate every potential SARS case, and determine how likely it was any individual patient had the virus. Several of the ID specialists at my hospital worked in the lab on the actual isolation and characterization of the virus, and they were also involed in tracking the spread of the virus.

To sum up, the epi and ID are closely related. The main differences are that in epi you are looking at large population trends, and mostly dealing with numbers and not with individuals. In ID you are evaluating one patient at a time, and while you work with the epidemiologists in evaluating population trends, your primary focus is on the patients you are treating.

 

[AJM]

Also, in addition to the question above I wanted to know if I did Internal Medicine and specialized in Pediatric Infectious Diseases... would that be considered as 2 things or could I still pursue an MPH at the same time?

Thanks!

If you want to do Pediatric ID, you should do a residency in Pediatrics, not internal medicine. I'm not sure what you mean about that being considered two things. In order to do ID you have to do a residency in either peds or internal medicine.

You can definitely pursue an MPH as well. Many people do that during med school, but there are many fellowship programs that will pay for their fellows to get an MPH or maters in epi.

 

[APACHE3]

You're in the 12th grade? You're eight years away from practicing medicine. Keep your mind open, you may find a number of things that will be of interest. Did you make 1600 on your SAT or something? Take your girlfriend out to the movies and enjoy your life now. And...in 4 years GL with med school! 😉

 

[AJM]

You're in the 12th grade? You're eight years away from practicing medicine. Keep your mind open, you may find a number of things that will be of interest. Did you make 1600 on your SAT or something? Take your girlfriend out to the movies and enjoy your life now. And...in 4 years GL with med school! 😉

Whoa - I didn't notice that! It's definitely not worth thinking that far ahead. Chances are you will change your mind many times on what you will want to do when you grow up -- and that's just while in college. 🙂

 

[Sketch]

Just getting a feel of what my ideal profession is really like. I'm in Canada so no SATs for me. Can anyone tell me once you got out of medical school... how long it took for you to pay your debts? It seems as though I'll be having a ton of them.

 

[AJM]

Just getting a feel of what my ideal profession is really like. I'm in Canada so no SATs for me. Can anyone tell me once you got out of medical school... how long it took for you to pay your debts? It seems as though I'll be having a ton of them.

You ask this as if the debt repayment is in the past tense...
I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you, but most of us who graduate from med school are on 20-30 year loan repayment plans. (you can extend it to 30 years if you consolidate). I'll personally finish paying off my student loans when I'm around 50. The nice thing is that the interest rates are great right now, but who knows what they'll be 10 years from now when people your age are graduating from med school.

 

[mteeter]

Seeing as you're Canadian I'll try and give you a Canadian perspective.

When SARS hit Toronto, the ID docs took the lead in the hospitals in terms of how to handle the patients. The two "big names" are Donald Low and Alison McGeer who are both double certified in Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology. You've probably seen them on TV. In normal times they spend most of their time doing research.

On the more epidemiological/public health side things were lead by Sheela Basrur (Toronto's medical officer of health then, now chief MOH for Ontario) and Colin D'Cunha (chief MOH for Ontario Ministry of Health at the time) who have fellowships in Community Medicine.

You also have the research side of things with people like Mark Loeb at McMaster who are specialized in ID and Med Micro, but also have masters in epi. This sort of 'triple threat' lets him treat patients, do lab research, and do clinical research.

As a summary:
ID = treating patients, hospital job, research if associated with university (med school -> 3 years IM or peds + 2 years ID)
Med Micro = diagnostics, also a hospital job or government lab, often more tied into research than ID (med school -> 5 years MM)
You can do both ID and Med Micro with certain program eg med school -> 3 years IM -> 1.5 ID + 1.5 MM since ID and MM training crosses over
Community Medicine = public health/epidemiology, gets an MPH as part of the fellowship, usually government job (med school -> 5 years MM)

 

[Sketch]

AJM,
I figured doctors made enough money to pay their loans a few years in their practice. I guess this wasn't the case 🙁. If you pay your loans of when you're 50 I wonder when you retire 😱

mteeter,
Thanks very very much for breaking that down for me!

 

[sacrament]

Before this I was looking at Epidemiology because it seemed like it was an exciting career...

Well if epidemiology doesn't work out, you can always go into tax law or possibly toll booth operator.

 

[fantasty]

Well if epidemiology doesn't work out, you can always go into tax law or possibly toll booth operator.

🙄 Epidemiology has a lot of misconceptions about it. It's not all outbreak investigations, and it does require an aptitude for number crunching. But, there are exciting jobs (EIS officer through the CDC, etc). And, although you may think otherwise, SARS showed how "exciting" hospital epidemiology can be. If you want a job that has the potential to impact entire populations of people, epidemiology = 👍

 

[sacrament]

But, there are exciting jobs (EIS officer through the CDC, etc). And, although you may think otherwise, SARS showed how "exciting" hospital epidemiology can be.

For me to subscribe to this worldview would require a wildly different dopaminergic system, or something.