The Daily Schedule Of An Infectious Disease Specialist

An infectious disease (ID) specialist will consult with their patients in the general ward, ICU and isolation rooms of the hospital 1-2 times a day. This is done until the patient has progressed well and is clinically stable enough to be discharged home or to a step-down facility to continue management, such as receiving intravenous antibiotics and wound care. The latter will be done if the patient is not showing any more signs of an infection, such as fevers, but still needs to complete their course of treatment.

An ID specialist's office will be based in the hospital so that they can get to their ward and ICU patients as soon as they can, as well as being able to get to casualty patients in time if there's an emergency. 

ID specialists are expected to provide on call services for the hospital during after hours and weekends. These specialists will consult with primary healthcare and casualty personnel to give an opinion on or to consult with emergency patients. Emergency cases will include meningococcal meningitis, persistent high grade fevers that don't break despite treatment being given and patients with suspect tropical diseases that need to be isolated.

Monday 

Usually an administrative day, the specialist will deal with issues such as confirming and attending meetings with staff, hospital management and medical reps. 

Once all these tasks have been dealt with, the specialist will then begin consulting with patients. It's seldom that an ID specialist will consult with acutely ill out-patients at their offices, and they are more likely to visit patients who are already admitted by other specialists. Therefore, any out-patients they consult with will be managed conservatively or be admitted for further investigations and management, and in-patients will be consulted and managed appropriately.

The special investigations that are requested will be followed with the affected patient. Further tests and management will then be discussed with the patient.

Tuesday

The ID specialist may use this day to visit local TB (tuberculosis) clinics and hospitals to assess patients and to review chest X-rays, blood works and prescriptions. These are usually also academic institutions and the ID specialist will offer training to nursing personnel and medical officers who work at these facilities.

Wednesday

This day may be used to initially consult with or follow up HIV/AIDS patients. The initial consultation will include reviewing the patient's medical history as detailed by the referring doctor. The specialist will then continue care for the patient by prescribing the correct medication and referring them to allied healthcare workers such as physiotherapists, occupational therapists and dieticians. 

The patients will then be followed up accordingly by the ID specialist.

READ The Daily Schedule Of A Haematologist

Thursday

The specialist will continue to consult with patients and review their special investigations and medications.

The afternoon will be used for further training of undergraduate and postgraduate medical students and doctor at the local medical school. The specialist would also perform duties such as filling in motivation letters to medical aid companies or doing research for their own academic purposes.

Friday

The specialist will continue to consult with hospital patients and will resolve any unfinished administrative duties before the end of the day.

The specialist who is on call for the weekend will then look after their patients and those of their colleagues.