The Open Forum Infectious Diseases Podcast

In episode 38 of the OFID podcast, OFID Editor in Chief Paul Sax, MD, interviews Chris Stolarski, associate director of university communication at Marquette University, about his frightening experience with COVID-19 infection and hospitalization, and sharing his story to encourage others to get vaccinated. 

In episode 37 of the OFID podcast, OFID Editor in Chief Paul Sax, MD, and Jeanne Marrazzo, MD, professor of medicine and director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, square off in a spirited draft of the top animal-related infections.

In episode 36 of the OFID podcast, OFID Editor in Chief Paul Sax, MD, interviews Emily Oster, PhD, professor of economics at Brown University and author of several books assessing risk during pregnancy and raising kids, to discuss communicating risk to readers and precautions parents should take in the time of COVID-19.

In episode 35 of the OFID podcast, OFID Editor in Chief Paul Sax, MD, is joined by Zeynep Tufekci, PhD, sociologist and associate professor at the University of North Carolina, to discuss the logic behind her prescient COVID-19 pandemic conclusions, and her use of op-eds in prominent news outlets to amplify her findings.

In episode 34 of the OFID podcast, OFID Editor in Chief Paul Sax, MD, speaks with David Meltzer, MD, PhD, professor and chief of hospital medicine at the University of Chicago, about his research linking low vitamin D levels with COVID-19 susceptibility, the limitations of currently available data, and if vitamin D supplementation is wise.

In episode 33 of the OFID podcast, OFID Editor in Chief Paul Sax, MD, speaks with Vinay Prasad, MD, MPH, author and associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, about being an evidence-based medicine proponent, the handling of COVID-19 in the U.S., and voicing his thoughts on social media.

In episode 32 of the OFID podcast, OFID Editor in Chief Paul Sax, MD, invites University of Alabama Jim Straley Chair in AIDS Research Michael Saag, MD, to walk through his harrowing experience with COVID-19, offer a comparison between COVID-19 and HIV, and what gives him hope for the future.

  In a pre-pandemic OFID podcast, OFID Editor in Chief Paul Sax, MD, takes on Monica Mahoney, PharmD, clinical pharmacy coordinator of infectious diseases at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in a podcast draft. This time, the pair debates their top ID internet resources (COVID-19 excluded).  

  In episode 30 of the OFID podcast, OFID Editor in Chief Paul Sax, MD, speaks with David Boulware, MD, MPH, about the large, double-blind, internet-based trial he and his team conducted finding hydroxychloroquine is no more effective at preventing COVID-19 infection than a placebo.  

In episode 29 of the OFID podcast, OFID Editor in Chief Paul Sax, MD, speaks candidly with Eric Bressman, MD, chief medical resident at Mt. Sinai Hospital, about confronting the onslaught of COVID-19 cases at Elmhurst Hospital, the disproportionate impact on the Queens community, and the toll on his colleagues and family.

In episode 28 of the OFID podcast, OFID Editor in Chief Paul Sax, MD, speaks with Helen Branswell – a seasoned infectious diseases and global health reporter at STAT – a media company offering health, medicine, and scientific discovery reporting. She shares the turbulent pursuit of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 story.

  In episode 27 of the OFID podcast, OFID Editor in Chief Paul Sax, MD, interviews Aditya (“Adi”) Shah, MD – Chief ID Fellow and Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic and creator of the cult ID Twitter following #StewardMeme. The duo discuss Dr. Shah’s clever social media commentaries and what drew him to ID.  

In the 26th episode of the OFID podcast, OFID Editor in Chief Paul Sax, MD, interviews medical cartoonist and Chief of Hospital Medicine at Mount Sinai West Hospital, Grace Farris, MD. The pair discuss how she found her passion in art and medicine, and the all-too-real issues she brings to life in her cartoons.

  Paul Sax, MD – OFID Editor in Chief – and Raphael Landovitz, MD, are at it again. In the 25th episode of the OFID podcast, the pair engage in a lively debate of the top five research papers in HIV medicine, covering topics throughout the disease’s relatively short history. Dr. Landovitz is Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angles School of Medicine.  

The 24th episode of the OFID podcast, hosted by OFID Editor Paul Sax, MD, explores the motivations and histories of two brothers who both followed their father’s footsteps into medicine, but then forayed into infectious diseases and now jointly own a private practice in Memphis, TN.

In this episode, OFID Editor Paul Sax, MD, invites colleague and friend Raphael Landovitz, MD, to debate the top five reasons one might choose infectious diseases as a medical specialty. The pair cover everything from being hit up for a consult at cocktail parties to having the distinct pleasure of removing parasites from terrified patients.

In this episode, OFID Editor Paul Sax, MD, interviews Eric Winer, MD, about his enduring battle with hemophilia. Diagnosed at 13 months old, he shares how early exposure to hospitals and doctors ignited his drive to become a physician, and how his subsequent diagnoses with HIV, hepatitis C, and numerous treatment complications did not deter his work resolve or his determination to have a family – and an extraordinarily productive career.

In this episode, OFID Editor Paul Sax, MD, interviews Susan Davis, PharmD, about the role pharmacists play in improving patient outcomes, why PharmDs may be underutilized in the clinical setting, and ID drugs. They also reference the recent OFID article "A Qualitative Study of the Real World Experiences of Infectious Diseases Fellows Regarding Antibiotic Stewardship."

In this episode, OFID Editor Paul Sax, MD, interviews Philip Cheng, MD, a urology resident denied disability insurance after taking an HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Here he shares how he first heard of and started taking PrEP, the time and steps he took to capture media attention, and how he’s adjusting to his newly found role combating discriminatory insurance practices.

In this episode, OFID Editor Paul Sax, MD, and Raphael Landovitz, MD, face off in a game that mirrors a fantasy sports draft, where the players take turns picking their favorite ID drugs available as generics.

In this episode, OFID Editor Paul Sax interviews his friend Andy Borowitz about his brush with death when he faced a life-threatening infection. Dr. Sax walks the satirist through the harrowing yet somehow now hilarious tale, from symptoms and diagnosis to his surgeon’s bedside manner and eventual recovery.

In this installment of the OFID podcast series, Editor Paul Sax, MD, and Rebeca Plank, MD, MPH, face off once again in a game that mirrors a fantasy sports draft, taking turns picking ID diagnostic tests.

In this installment of the OFID podcast series, Editor Paul Sax, MD, interviews Rajesh Panjabi, MD, MPH, about a healthcare model for the world’s most remote and impoverished. He describes key facets of successfully deploying community members as health workers, the transformative power of rapid testing on disease management in resource-poor settings, and how the Ebola outbreak of 2016 underscored the important role community members play in preventing the spread of infectious diseases.

In this fifteenth installment of the OFID podcast, Alysse Wurcel, MD, MS, shares her work in infectious complications of addiction with Editor Paul Sax, MD. She discusses her OFID article “Increasing Infectious Endocarditis Admissions Among Young People Who Inject Drugs,” as well as shares some of the challenges of coaching other health professionals when treating infection drug use and staying positive when entrenched in this often heavy work.

In the fourteenth installment of the OFID podcast series, Editor Paul Sax, MD, and Rebeca Plank, MD, MPH, face off in a game that mirrors a fantasy sports draft, where the players take turns picking the strongest team of antibiotics “players.”

In this thirteenth installment of the OFID podcast, Editor Paul Sax, MD, and Brad Spellberg, MD, discuss messaging and managing antibiotic stewardship. They delve into why it continues to be such a hot topic and how to convince hospital executives that the work is worthwhile, also well some of Dr. Spellberg’s all-time favorite misguided statements that people make on the subject.

In this twelfth installment of the OFID podcast, Editor Paul Sax, MD, discusses pertussis epidemiology and prevention with James Cherry, MD. Dr. Cherry breaks down the evolution of pertussis vaccines over time, how to protect and prevent infection in those most at risk, and whether infections are truly on the rise.

In the eleventh installment of the OFID podcast, Editor Paul Sax, MD, explores the ins-and-outs of manning the helm of one of the leading journals in ID – Clinical Infectious Diseases – with Sherwood Gorbach, MD. He will have held the Editor-in-Chief position for 17 years when he retires in December. Dr. Gorbach divulges the biggest challenges of the job, what it was like before electronic publishing, and how the journal has dealt with sticky subjects, such as conflicts of interest and retractions.

In the tenth installment of the OFID podcast, Editor Paul Sax, MD, interviews Wendy Armstrong, MD, and Michael Edmond, MD, MPH, to debate the root cause of the unsettling decline in infectious disease fellowship applicants. The trio explores how the lack of salary parity, less exposure to infectious diseases doctors during residency, and increasing educational debt burden are contributing to the problem.

In the ninth installment of the Open Forum Infectious Diseases podcast, Editor in Chief Paul Sax, MD, explores the current Zika virus outbreak with Duane Gubler, ScD, MS, who specializes in vector-borne infectious diseases. Dr. Gubler walks through the epidemiology of Zika and postulates both how Zika made its way to Brazil from the South Pacific and how this disease could impact the United States.

In the eighth installment of the OFID podcast, Editor Paul Sax, MD, delves into the headline-making pyrimethamine (Daraprim) saga where Turing Pharmaceuticals increased the price of the recently-acquired toxoplasmosis drug from $13 to $750 a pill. Aaron Kesselheim, MD, JD, MPH, and Joel Gallant, MD, MPH, join the discussion to shed light on what is unique about the generic drug market in the U.S. that makes these dramatic price increases possible and if there will be any resolution.

In this seventh installment of the Open Forum Infectious Diseases podcast, Editor in Chief Paul Sax, MD, interviews Angela Caliendo, MD, PhD, about the latest advances in the microbiology laboratory and where the future will lead as clinicians demand faster and more accurate pathogen diagnostics. The pair explores the implementation of MALDI-TOF mass spectometry in the U.S., the time it saves in the laboratory, and how it can help prevent the overuse of antibiotics.

In this sixth installment of the Open Forum Infectious Diseases podcast, Editor in Chief Paul Sax, MD, speaks with Martin Blaser, MD, about the overuse of antibiotics in the United States and the consequential impact on the normal flora within the human body, known as the microbiota.

In this fifth installment of the Open Forum Infectious Diseases podcast, Editor in Chief Paul Sax, MD, engages with award-winning author and journalist Seth Mnookin about his critically-acclaimed “medical detective story,” The Panic Virus: The True Story Behind the Vaccine-Autism Controversy . Mnookin fields questions on lessons learned in the recent measles outbreak, how to bridge the disconnect between scientific research and public knowledge, and what fueled the misinformation fire in the vaccine-autism conundrum.

In this fourth installment of the Open Forum Infectious Diseases podcast, Editor in Chief Paul Sax, MD, discusses the Ebola pandemic with Paul E. Farmer, MD, PhD – an infectious diseases specialist who has spent most of his career focused on medical care of the underserved around the world. Partners in Health (PIH), an organization co-founded by Dr. Farmer, has been one of the first-responders to this latest Ebola outbreak.

In this third installment of the Open Forum Infectious Diseases podcast, Editor in Chief Paul Sax, MD, speaks with colleague Deborah Cotton, MD, MPH, about the recent OFID article “A Glimpse of the Early Years of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic: A Fellow's Experience in 2014.” Drs. Sax and Cotton compare their experiences in Boston (at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Boston University Hospital, respectively) with those of the authors at Atlanta’s Grady Hospital, which still cares for a large number of patients with untreated HIV.

In the second Open Forum Infectious Diseases podcast, Editor in Chief Paul Sax, MD, discusses the early days of HIV/AIDS with John Bartlett, MD – an HIV specialist and a leading infectious diseases (ID) physician. As an early responder to the epidemic in Baltimore, Dr. Bartlett reflects on the stigma and fear that rang through the medical community and society at large, and the heroes who emerged. Dr. Bartlett is a Stanhope Bayne Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins University and served as chief of ID at the school for 26 years, stepping down in June of 2006

In the first Open Forum Infectious Diseases podcast, Editor in Chief Paul Sax, MD, interviews Samuel L. Katz, MD, a pediatrician and virologist who played an integral part in the development of the measles vaccine. Dr. Katz discusses the history of measles and gives his views on how to stop current outbreaks. He is currently the Wilburt Cornell Davison Professor and Chair Emeritus of Pediatrics at Duke University.