Educating Health Workers about Dealing with Seasonal Infections

Abstract

In communities across the globe, healthcare workers become increasingly vigilant as summer transitions to fall. For it is during this period that various seasonal infections, notable among them the flu, circulate and strike down individuals, resulting in significant morbidity, bed loss, outpatient and emergent visits, and in some instances horrific complications and loss of life. Healthcare workers such as doctors, nurses, and allied care professionals are reminded in various ways to communicate the importance of vaccination and hygiene to avoid these entirely preventable problems. Nonetheless, when we reflect on the education and training of this cadre of professionals, it is surprising to see the relative absence of specific curricular content directed towards the comprehensive understanding of seasonal respiratory infections. While it is true that areas of content pertaining to microbiology, infectious diseases, and public health in general do appear in some guise in medical, nursing, and other allied health curriculums, these often do not specifically encompass practical knowledge that healthcare workers can use on an everyday basis to diagnose, manage, and curtail community transmission of these infections.