Nocardiosis is an infection caused by Nocardia – a branching, filamentous, gram-positive bacteria found in the soil and aquatic environment – which becomes airborne and causes (most commonly) pulmonary infections. In contrast to to Actinomyces, Nocardia exhibits partial acid-fastness on staining and grows under aerobic conditions. This organism can also…
Clostridium difficile (C.diff) infection (CDI) is the most common US healthcare pathogen-associated infection with over 450,000 cases and 29,000 deaths per year. If you work in healthcare, you’ve likely heard of CDI… but where does this bug come from and what can we do about it?
Patients with bacteremia/fungemia can pose a real challenge, especially when discussing if, how, and when to exchange out existing access catheters. In other words, if I have a patient in my ICU with new gram negative rods in their blood, but they also have a port for chemotherapy and a…