Being an Infectious Disease Doctor
Jon Underwood, consultant physician at the University Hospital of Wales
I’m a medical doctor who has specialised in infectious diseases.
This means I look after people who have complicated as well as less complicated infections, including looking after patients with COVID-19, HIV (the virus causing AIDS), tuberculosis and meningitis. I also work doing acute medicine, which involves looking after people who are acutely unwell but who don’t need surgery. Patients could have all manner of things wrong with them, such as having a heart rhythm problem, ‘funny’ rash or an asthma attack, and my job is to try to figure out what’s wrong with them and give them the right treatment – or send them to the right specialist to get them better.
Structure of a coronavirus. Note the spikes that adorn the outer surface of the virus, which are the proteins the COVID-19 vaccine targets. Image: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA.
I’m lucky as my job has a huge amount of variety and I’m never bored at work!
I was drawn to medicine as I like science, problem solving and people – and originally I had aspirations to be a coroner (too much watching ‘Quincy’ on the telly!). I studied medicine at Imperial College London and did my junior and specialist training in infectious diseases at a number of hospitals in London.
I was captivated by infectious diseases when I was at medical school as infections are so varied and fascinating. For example, Toxoplasma is a parasite that has a complicated life cycle that involves it growing in different stages in cats and other animals like mice. But the really interesting bit is that when it infects mice it affects their brains and makes them less fearful of cats, and therefore more likely to get eaten – which completes the life cycle. Isn’t nature cool?
Also, infectious diseases interact with society at large – be it in a pandemics that disrupts our way of life, or exotic infections in people travelling from overseas countries.
I also work in a more directly scientific role and did a PhD studying the effects of HIV on the brain. At the moment I’m researching how infections in the blood as well as COVID-19 affect how we think and injure our brains. I also lead several clinical trials in Cardiff to test new treatments for COVID-19.
You can find out more about me at the link below.