Infectious Diseases deals with diseases caused by infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites. Infectious Disease Specialists have roles both in the laboratory and directly in patient care.

Infectious diseases physicians investigate and understand how pathogens such as viruses and bacteria cause illness, how to prevent and control their spread and how to most effectively treat infected patients. Through working in this specialty you will not only use your skills to cure patients of infections that can be severe and even life-threatening, but you will increasingly be able to use cutting edge laboratory technology.

Genome sequencing (finding out the entire DNA sequence of infectious agents) has radically changed how we deliver care in infectious disease. We can now use these methods to tailor the most effective treatments for patients. Genome sequencing is also increasingly playing an important role in infectious disease surveillance and disease outbreak investigation, enhancing the public health response to support prevention and control of infectious diseases within a community or population.
   
Infectious disease physicians have extensive training in internal medicine and specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases. They focus on how diseases spread, how the body fights them and how to control them. Though they sometimes work as primary care physicians, they usually take cases referred to them by other doctors.

They also treat patients whose cause of illness is unknown.

ANZSCO ID: 253399
   
Alternative names: Infectious Diseases Physician, Infectious Disease Specialist, Clinical Infectious Disease Specialist,

Specialisations: It is possible to specialise in:

• common acute and chronic infections, including those resistant to many antibiotics

• pandemic and epidemic diseases

• tropical infections

• public health

• infections in children

• infections of global importance, for example, HIV / AIDS, tuberculosis

• medical education and research.
  

Knowledge, skills and attributes

Infectious disease specialists who work directly with patients usually start by reviewing a file that is sent by another healthcare specialist. This includes reviewing of the medical history of the patient along with various lab reports and X-rays. Samples of blood, tissue or other bodily fluids may be acquired from the patient, and these samples are tested in the laboratory for diseases that cause any symptoms that the patient is seen to exhibit. Once the disease has been identified, the doctor will then prescribe a treatment plan and medication for the patients.
   
Infectious disease specialists only diagnose the disease and treat it non-surgically. If surgery is required, they refer the patient to the appropriate surgeon for further treatment.
   
Infectious disease doctors will often see about 30 patients a week on an average. They also attend many case review meetings, conferences and referral meetings. Follow up appointments are also very common. Common issues seen include rashes, fever or stomach related problems, especially by people who have recently visited tropical areas.

Working in infectious diseases combines both the clinical and laboratory skills of making diagnoses with providing effective treatment for a wide range of infections in both acutely and chronically ill patients.

There are four distinct but very much interdependent infection specialties: Infectious Diseases (ID), Medical Microbiology (MM), Medical Virology (MV) and Tropical Medicine (TM).

Specialists in infectious diseases have noted a big impact on their role of factors such as:

• an increase in the severity of infections, particularly in more frail populations of patients

• an increase in resistance to antibiotics

• new infections such as MRSA, Clostridium difficile and norovirus which can be hospital-acquired

• a rise in blood-borne virus infections, such as hepatitis B and C and HIV

• the growing popularity of global travel heightening the need for expertise in the prevention and treatment of travel-related ‘international’ disease

Infectious Disease Physician
(Source: Defence Jobs)

Duties and Tasks

• Taking the lead in laboratory and clinical activities to identify, observe and diagnose, and initially manage infectious disease cases.

• Providing consultant level advice on the ongoing management and treatment of infectious disease cases.

• Providing advice regarding the potential for infectious diseases to spread into relevant populations and the risks to military staff.

• Admitting patients with severe infections

• Managing severe infection in an intensive therapy unit (ITU) setting

• Managing patients with imported infections such as malaria

• Caring for immunocompromised patients, including neutropenic (low white-blood-cell count) patients and those with HIV infection/AIDS

• Seeing patients in clinics dealing with a wide range of infection related problems including specialty clinics such as hepatitis, HIV, tuberculosis, travel related infection etc

• Managing nosocomial infections (infections a patient acquires while in hospital), with knowledge of infection control and appropriate liaison with laboratory services

• Providing advice to other consultants in all specialties about care of their patients with infections

• Advising on policies relating to control of infections and best use of antibiotics

• Advising on prevention of travel related infections

• Providing expert advice on public health policies.

Clinical Infectious Disease Specialist
https://youtu.be/WXOdrKnSf-Q

Working conditions
   
Infectious diseases physicians usually spend most of their time with patients in hospital settings. They work closely with teams of other clinicians such as nurses and laboratory scientists. Some choose not only to look after individual patients with infections, but to work also as medical microbiologists in diagnostic or public health laboratories, or as public health physicians.

Actuary	Biometrician	Demographer	Epidemiologist
Medical Laboratory Scientist	Medical Laboratory Technician	Microbiologist	Nurse