What You Should Know About Antibiotic Bone Penetration And Osteomyelitis

Warren S. Joseph DPM FIDSA
4/9/12 | 1726 reads | 0 comments
Steven Klein, DPM, a reader of this blog, emailed me to ask the following questions. I have obtained his permission to use his excellent thoughts as a “jumping off” point for this post and some subsequent ones to follow. Read More.

Emerging Trends In Antibiotic Prescriptions By Podiatrists

Warren S. Joseph DPM FIDSA
1/30/12 | 2150 reads | 8 comments
I recently came across some fascinating data that breaks down the number of outpatient prescriptions written by podiatrists for all different classes of drugs in 2010. Unlike various surveys that have been done over the years by different magazines, this is hard data based on the actual number of scripts. I would like to comment on some findings I find interesting in the use of antibiotics. Read More.

A New Review Of Antibiotic Therapy For Osteomyelitis

Warren S. Joseph DPM FIDSA
1/10/12 | 1945 reads | 0 comments
I wish all of my readers a healthy, happy and prosperous 2012. With this post, I am trying something a bit different. In the past, I usually waited to put up a post until I come up with an “aha” moment on something I have seen, heard or read about, and then pontificate on this site. These moments could occur only days apart but usually it was a much longer time period leading to relatively infrequent additions to the blog. Read More.

Are Surgical Prophylaxis Requirements At Hospitals Effective Or Do They Inadvertently Encourage Superfluous Antibiotic Use?

Warren S. Joseph DPM FIDSA
11/23/11 | 1461 reads | 0 comments
One of the most frequent questions people ask me is about when to use antibiotic prophylaxis in performing foot and ankle surgery. I have an entire lecture on this topic. In this lecture, I go through the data, or lack thereof, on the subject and enumerate the clinical situations (i.e. surgery longer than two hours, trauma surgery, immunocompromised hosts, etc.) in which surgeons have traditionally utilized prophylaxis. Read More.

What You Should Know About Linezolid And Psychiatric Medications

Warren S. Joseph DPM FIDSA
10/31/11 | 1311 reads | 0 comments
One of the trickiest issues in prescribing linezolid (Zyvox, Pfizer) for patients with methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) or vancomycin resistant Enterococcus (VRE) infections is the potential for a drug-drug interaction with various serotonergic psychiatric medications, leading to serotonin syndrome. It seems that every pharmacy computer system in the world goes crazy with warnings when you attempt to write for this antibiotic while the patient is on these meds. Read More.

A Closer Look At The Recent Literature On Infectious Diseases And Antibiotics

Warren S. Joseph DPM FIDSA
9/26/11 | 1474 reads | 0 comments
As I mentioned in a previous post, there are a number of journals I follow to stay abreast of developments in the infectious disease, microbiology and antibiotic world (see http://bit.ly/iLJb6k ). For updates on the latest in antibiotic development from pre-clinical through clinical testing, no journal beats the American Society of Microbiology’s Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (http://aac.asm.org/ ). Read More.

Why I Don’t Eat Raw Oysters: What The Emerging Literature Reveals About Infectious Diseases And Contaminated Food

Warren S. Joseph DPM FIDSA
8/25/11 | 1569 reads | 1 comments
The more I read the infectious disease literature, the more limited my diet becomes. It seems that new reports of contaminated food are published regularly. It gets to a point where you do not know what you should and should not eat. I have always been wary of raw foods and rarely eat sushi. This was especially the case after an article was published in Clinical Infectious Diseases a number of years ago complete with pictures of the worm coughed up by a patient who ate salmon sushi.1 (I apologize to those of you who love to eat sushi. It’s just not for me.) Read More.

A Pertinent Overview Of Infection Control And Instrument Disinfection

Warren S. Joseph DPM FIDSA
7/27/11 | 2069 reads | 0 comments
This week I will be giving a talk on office infection control to the podiatric assistants at the American Podiatric Medical Association (APMA) National Meeting in Boston. I believe this is an area that does not receive enough attention since it is far from “sexy” or cutting edge, but is still important. Read More.

Is Pseudomonas A Legitimate Pathogen Or A Notorious Colonizer In Lower Extremity Infections?

Warren S. Joseph DPM FIDSA
5/19/11 | 2497 reads | 3 comments
For a number of years, I have referred in my lectures to the word I have termed “Pseudomonaphobia.” Basically, this is an irrational fear of the organism Pseudomonas aeruginosa when it is isolated from a culture of a wound in the foot. I really believe this arises in most podiatrists during the residency interview process when, without fail, the interviewer asks them, “How would you treat a Pseudomonas infection in the foot?” Read More.