Notes from Dr. Klompas

1) Background on Dr. Klompas

a. an infectious disease specialist

b. if an infection doesn’t respond to normal treatments, he is called

c. if the infection is from abroad

d. if one has an extremely weak immune system

e. if one is in post surgery

f. works with infection control within the hospital

2) Does a person’s genetic makeup determine their impact by medicine?

a. yes- gender and race as well as location, origin, and activities

b. examples:

i. Elderly people are more likely to receive the West Nile Virus and the disease effects them more than younger people

ii. People who travel abroad are more likely to get tuberculosis

iii. Gardeners may get spothrax

iv. Swimmers are more likely to get librio collum

3) How does a hospital prevent against spreading diseases since hospitals can host bacteria that no other place can host due to the combination of so many bacterias?

a. compare medical problems to the past to determine if it is first time disease has shown in patient

b. if a disease shows for the first time, determine if its seasonal or irregular

c. if the disease is non-environmental or repeated, determine its source by comparing charts

d. once they find who has the disease, find out what they have in common

i. surgery procedure, same doctor, same equipment, same room, etc.

ii. ex. 8 nurses and 10 patients got effected, discovered it was from a nurse party, sent nurses home and cleaned patient area to solve the problem

4) How has technology helped with the current AIDS epidemic?

a. After discovering HIV, it took only three years to develop AZT

5) How has technology helped with other treatments?

a. Antibiotics that fail to work means the patient has to go through surgery or other treatments. New medicine has reduced the number of treatments and safety of surgeries

i. ex. Created medicine to knockout liver so treatments could be delivered without being detoxed by the liver

6) Other benefits of technology?

a. antibiotics:

i. now we can fight influenza

ii. now we can fight AIDS

b. people come in knocking on death’s door and can be cured in 3-4 days

7) Bad results from technology?

a. Sometimes hospitals give patients diseases they wouldn’t otherwise get – can result in death

CONCLUSION: Technology has led us to research and develop medicines. We found that medicine needs to be created with caution because it can be tainted and overprescribed, which may cause deaths and allow for bacteria to mutate. While these medicines result in deaths on rare cases, ultimately, medicine has improved the quality of life for many people and allowed people to live who would otherwise die.