Today, while rounding on infectious disease patients, I came face to face with a deadly killer for which I had no treatment to offer.
It wasn't Ebola.
This killer lurks within the US, can spread person to person with ease, and can cause whole hospital units to shut down.
Its name: XDR Acinetobacter.
Because many of the infections this pathogen causes occur in elderly chronically Ill nursing home patient, it doesn't grab headlines. It should for it is a harbinger of the future if antimicrobial resistance continues and current strategies in the treatment of infectious diseases, reliant almost exclusively on broad spectrum antimicrobials, are not rethought.
So while more flashy diseases may turn heads, the serial killer in the shadows continues its work.