Shaping the Future of Infectious Diseases: The Journey to Promote Value, Opportunity, and Positive Messaging.

The field of infectious diseases (ID) offers a rewarding career path and is widely viewed as an essential subspecialty in medicine. However, in recent years, these positive aspects have been overshadowed by concerns surrounding low fellowship match rates, undercompensation, and burnout. The Infectious Diseases Society of America Fellowship Training Program Directors Committee met in 2023, discussed the future of ID as a specialty, and sought to develop strategies to highlight the value and opportunities of ID for future generations, as well as underscore the importance of and provide tools for positive messaging to trainees about the subspecialty.

Rapid molecular testing is associated with decreased broad-spectrum antibiotic use among patients with streptococcal bloodstream infections.

We investigated the impact of rapid diagnostic testing with real-time stewardship intervention on patients with bacteremia. Compared to pre-intervention, patients in the post-intervention group received more rapid antibiotic de-escalation (42 vs 88 h), and were more commonly de-escalated to narrow-spectrum (86% vs 52%) and oral antibiotics (30% vs 14%).

A Prospective Pilot Study of Pencil Beam Scanning Proton Radiation Therapy as a Component of Trimodality Therapy for Esophageal Cancer.

Purpose: To evaluate the safety and efficacy of pencil beam scanning (PBS) proton radiation therapy (RT) in trimodality therapy for esophageal cancer.

Methods And Materials: This prospective pilot study was planned to accrue 30 patients with locally advanced esophageal or gastroesophageal junction carcinoma medically suitable for chemoradiation therapy (CRT) followed by esophagectomy. PBS proton RT consisted of 25 fractions, 50 Gy to tumor + 1 cm and 45 Gy to a 3.

Monoclonal Gammopathy and Its Association with Progression to Kidney Failure and Mortality in Patients with CKD.

Background: Little is known about the prognostic significance of monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined and renal significance (MGUS and MGRS) in patients with CKD. The objective of this study was to determine the clinical and kidney outcomes of patients with CKD with either MGUS or MGRS compared with those with CKD without MGUS or MGRS.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study from 2013 to 2018.

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and acute kidney injury: a single-center retrospective cohort.

To assess the relationship between acute kidney injury (AKI) with outcomes among patients requiring extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). This is a single-center, retrospective cohort study of adult patients admitted to intensive care units (ICU) at a tertiary referral hospital requiring ECMO from July 1, 2015, to August 30, 2019. We assessed the temporal relationship of AKI and renal replacement therapy with ECMO type (VV vs.