Infectious Diseases in Primary Care

This clinically oriented course provides primary care clinicians with strategies, updates, and specific practice recommendations to improve diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of common infectious diseases. Primary care providers frequently face challenges in infectious diseases -- these include escalating resistance to antibiotics, emerging pathogens (including the novel coronavirus), new diagnostic studies, and recently approved drugs with novel mechanisms of action and potentially unrecognized adverse effects. This course enhances attendee knowledge and competency through a comprehensive overview of infections seen in ambulatory practice, covering new areas of controversy and recent advances and developments in the field. The format includes lectures, interactive case presentations, faculty discussions and problem-solving education. The program covers an expansive array of content, including management of infections of the respiratory, gastrointestinal, and urinary tracts; tick and other vector-borne diseases; sexually transmitted infections; viral respiratory illnesses; and other commonly encountered infectious problems. Modern approaches to diagnosis and the rational use of new and old antimicrobial agents will be discussed. Special attention will be given to the critical strategy of prevention of infections by immunization or antimicrobial prophylaxis.

During the course, we emphasize topics with practical applications to patient management, with frequent integration of case histories into didactic material. A keynote speaker this year will discuss how climate change may influence clinical practice, with a focus on the changing epidemiology of certain infectious diseases. Our course also offers an optional, half-day workshop focusing on the treatment of HIV and viral hepatitis. This workshop will allow for a more extensive educational opportunity for those who include or wish to include HIV and hepatitis treatment in their practices. As with the main course, this in-depth coverage of these topics focuses on advances in the field that improve patient outcomes.