The specialty of Infectious Disease involves the diagnosis and treatment of the whole range of infections; including viral, bacterial, tuberculous, fungal, and parasitic infections that involve any organ system in the body or the patient as a whole. In addition, as Infectious Disease physicians, we are often called upon to help diagnose patients with fevers regardless of whether the source is secondary to infection or some noninfectious cause such as due to drugs, tumors, or autoimmune disease.

The Infectious Disease specialist has training which includes four years of medical school, a year of internship, two or three years of residency training in Internal Medicine, and another two or three years of specialty training infectious diseases. In addition to his responsibility for the diagnosis and treatment of the individual patient with fever or infection, the Infectious Disease specialist has a responsibility to the community as a whole in terms of the impact of infectious disease on the community and its prevention through immunization and cooperation with the public health authorities.