...Ready For It? (IDWeek 2023's version)

Buddy Creech: [00:00:11] Hi, everybody. I'm Buddy Creech and this is Let's Talk ID. IDWeek is the joint annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, the HIV Medicine Association, the Pediatric ID Society, and the Society of ID Pharmacists. And this year, nerds from around the world will gather in Boston for what might be rightly described as a scientific turducken. It's continuing education inside of a science fair, all wrapped up in a summer camp environment. So we thought it might be fun for the hosts of Let's Talk ID Dr. Paul Sax and Mati Hlatshwayo Davis and me to give you all the inside scoop on what we're most looking forward to at the meeting. Maybe some advice for young trainees or first-time attendees and maybe, just maybe, our most embarrassing conference story. So thank you, Paul and Mati for joining today. I think we probably should start out trying to establish maybe a little bit of credibility here, right? A little bit of our bona fides about how much IDWeek we have in our bones. So, Paul, I'm going to ask you, I want you to set the over under here on the numbers of IDWeeks, and we're going to include IDSA meetings that predated IDWeek branding. How many have the three of us contributed in total? This is a hard number to come by because you're going to have to guess some ages and that gets awkward.

Paul Sax: [00:01:32] You're asking me because I'm the oldest.

Buddy Creech: [00:01:34] Those are your words, Paul. Those are your words.

Paul Sax: [00:01:38] Well, speaking for myself, I know how many I've been to. And, Buddy, are you asking me to give you that number?

Buddy Creech: [00:01:45] No. I want you to give me the number that all three of us combined. I want to know what that number is. You're going to have to guess how many Mati and I have been to as well. That's going to become the number. And then I'll go to Mati to see if she can win this bet.

Paul Sax: [00:01:57] I'm going to I'm going to go with 40.

Buddy Creech: [00:01:59] 40! 40? So this is like pack years of smoking. We have 40 IDWeek conferences all together. All right, Mati, do you want the over or the under on this one?

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:02:11] Over.

Buddy Creech: [00:02:13] Yeah. I'm telling you right now, I think our over under should have been higher. It's 55. We have 55 meetings between the three of us.

Paul Sax: [00:02:22] Wow.

Buddy Creech: [00:02:22] You know, I think a lot of us started when we were med school residency. I didn't really start in earnest until fellowship. But all it takes is is just one. And I still remember my first poster. I came out and it's more adrenaline that I think a human body can tolerate in a in a short period of time just because it was such a great environment. So I'll have to admit there's a lot of swag, there's a lot of lanyards that comes with this. So I have to ask the question and I'll start with you, Mati. Why do you go to IDWeek? What's the big draw for you?

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:02:53] Honestly, the biggest draw is getting to see friends and colleagues. What we've just endured together by way of the Covid 19 pandemic, especially those first few years, has made that even more critical. We just don't have time, discreetly, right? And I feel like we've become friends. And I'm embarrassed to say how many friends I assume I've met in person, but they've only been Twitter friends. And then I see them and I treat them like we've been knowing each other. It's like, actually, I don't know you, lady, you know what I mean? But it's the fellowship for me. Above and beyond. The quality of the talks and posters are, I mean, you can't put a price on that. And so obviously that's a big draw as well. But I've got to lead with fellowship here and community and togetherness and the organic collaborations, but also how it fills my cup up. You know? I feel like I come back rejuvenated, sense of purpose, feeling like I have back up and there's so many organic collaborations that have come out of it that that's got to be the leading reason for me.

Buddy Creech: [00:03:53] Yeah, that's a great word. Paul, what about you?

Paul Sax: [00:03:55] The face-to-face meeting and the ability to kind of get together with your people again is the primary reason to attend. I know that people criticize in-person meetings now appropriately because they're environmentally, they're not so great. And also, travel is expensive. This year, I'm fortunate because the meeting is right in my hometown, but it takes time away from family also. On the other hand, it is a way of kind of re-energizing us in our field of hearing about exciting things that are going on. I haven't missed it in years.

Buddy Creech: [00:04:26] I think it's intimidating for folks to enter our field in part because we are so tight knit. And I still remember as a young trainee at an in-person meeting all of a sudden thinking, okay, I'm in this new community and they're welcoming me in. That's very hard to do virtually. That's hard to do by email or by Zoom. But going to dinner or grabbing coffee with someone, all of those are intangibles that I think sometimes we overlook to our peril because that's really where collaborations are made. That's where we build trust with each other so that we have this inner circle of trusted colleagues that we can go to with issues. And I think that's why I introduced it as that sort of summer camp idea, because there are a lot of people I see them once a year, but I'm seeing them once a year and it's as if we never were apart from each other. I love that. So in light of that, maybe I'll start and just say the structure of the time at those meetings is really challenging because there's a lot going on. And if you just look at the schedule to glance and follow it to a T, I mean, that's a lot of steps. It's a lot of symposia, it's a lot of posters and it's simply too overwhelming. And how many times have we all had this experience where there's three symposia going on at the exact same time and we want to be at all three of them, right? It's impossible, but especially for first time attendees, where it is so overwhelming.

Buddy Creech: [00:05:45] I think having a plan and sticking to it is really good, but also being remarkably flexible once you get there. And I'll tell you what I do, and this is going to be a shout out to my assistant, Emily Mitchell, who is, I mean, she's ridiculously incredible. She will put the most important things that she knows that I need to go to on my Outlook calendar as if I were here at Vanderbilt having meetings, doing the things that I do here. And that gives me my alerts and it does all my things. And I'm not just sort of shuffling through papers. And that starts with the symposia and the poster sessions that I really want to go to that are mission critical. And those include trainees, right? Those trainees of mine that might be presenting their work. Those have to be sort of that first layer of importance for me. And then we go to like the required meetings, but build into that coffees and grabbing dinner with folks and breakfast with folks. And it's a busy time. And I still remember Paul Spearman, who's now at Cincinnati Children's, giving me advice. When I first started going to meetings, he said, If you can come out of one of these meetings with one new collaboration or one new scientific inquiry that you're now going to pursue, that's been a successful meeting. And so I structure my time in that way. Paul does that does that line up with your approach? I mean, how do you approach these meetings?

Paul Sax: [00:07:00] Well, you know, I'm primarily a clinician, and so I go to these meetings looking for pearls from people who are expert in areas that I still struggle with. I take a look, and like, for example, in addition to HIV, which is my dominant clinical activity, I have a fairly large cohort of people I follow with non-tuberculous mycobacteria infections and finding out what the people who are focusing on that as their primary clinical activity are doing, what's the cutting edge in that field, makes me feel like I've advanced my own practice and so I look carefully for those areas. Another thing I never miss are the debates. The debates, I think, are terrific ways of taking controversial areas in our field. Hearing two experts take opposite sides. They're entertaining. It's a great way to learn. I try never to miss those. And then the last thing is the "What's Hot?" lectures. You know, John Bartlett, may he rest in peace. Nobody did it better than he did. But there are lots of people who are doing it now in his place and going to the what's hot in topic X, Y, or Z is a good way of getting updated in the field. So that's the non, I'm going to leave out the journal activities, which for me are huge at IDWeek. But those, those are the ways that I kind of make sure I get some education at this meeting.

Buddy Creech: [00:08:22] Mati, what about you? How do you structure it?

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:08:24] My motto is always quality over quantity. And so if I was a new person or a trainee, I've got to follow an echo buddy that have a plan. Everybody should be aware that the IDSA staff, the best team in the land, spend a lot of time trying to make this as accessible for you as possible. So there's an online platform that's available to you right now. And on that, is the interactive program component. So you have listed for you with ease every single thing that's happening through IDWeek per day. So I would just start by perusing that and what catches your attention, What gets you excited? What Paul said about also thinking about subcategories. I love the shout out to the debate then can be your second pass. But my first pass is just to casually sitting sometimes. You know, I've got the kids, I've just put them down, I'm on my phone and I'm just skimming through what gets my heart beat up, what makes me excited, right? And I start there and then try to plan around that. But again, quality over quantity. And then I would also leave a little bit of time for those organic link ups, you know, make sure you can maybe grab a coffee, get lunch if you have a mentor that's a long-distance mentor. And this is especially for trainee and junior faculty members with intention, invite them in advance because everybody's coming in and leaving a different time. So get on their calendars now. Right? So that you can have met with the mentor, touched base with someone, but have left space for those organic link ups.

Buddy Creech: [00:09:50] Gosh, I love that. So, all right. You mentioned, you know, those things that might get you excited or geeked out. Have you found any of these already as you've been, you know, scrolling at the end of the night after a long day? Tell me what you're most excited about.

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:10:03] I'm so excited about this year. I almost couldn't make it. And let me tell you that I had to move some things around because there's no way I could miss this year. And I'm going to start from the end first about the thing that's probably got me the most excited. That's the closing plenary on Sunday afternoon. That's going to be 9:15 -10:45, PEPFAR, a model for global public health intervention. And I am without, without shame, biased. As a public health warrior myself, we only comprise 4% of IDSA, people who identify as primarily working in public health. And we are in the middle of a public health crisis. 100,000 workers left at the end of 2021, projected to be 38,000, I'm sorry, projected to be 100,000 by 2025. So it's exciting to me to see the society really have a strong closing plenary that honors public health, talks about global public health, and has a really exciting set of global public health leaders here. So our current president, Carlos del Rio and Wendy Armstrong, who's my longest, first time mentor, shout out, I met Wendy, I babysat her kids in medical school and we both were at the Cleveland Clinic. You don't get to get Wendy's heart as much as me. I'm hoping because I had the kids. So they're moderating and we have a rock star panel for that. So that's what I'm most excited about. I'll let Paul talk about what he may be excited about and I'll come back because I have a couple of other things.

Buddy Creech: [00:11:27] Yes, love it.

Paul Sax: [00:11:28] I actually wanted to cite a couple of debates and the one that actually we've had in our clinic recently is a woman who has stable HIV, who got pregnant, and she is originally from Africa and has lived in the United States now for about a decade. And she would like to breastfeed. And there is going to be a debate on whether people in the United States who have HIV and are pregnant should breastfeed their newborns. As you know, there's a long-standing policy in the United States discouraging that practice because the risk of HIV transmission is low, but not zero. For women who are virologically suppressed. And yet it is so low now and there are so many additional benefits of breastfeeding that it is arguably okay, especially if it fits in with the woman's cultural beliefs to endorse breastfeeding. So two experts in that field are going to discuss that. One is Sharon Nachman and the other is Allison Agwu. And we shall hear the pros and cons. And having done these debates in the past, I'm just going to tell you that the people who do them, they say choose one side or the other, you can't waffle.

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:12:42] [laughs]

Paul Sax: [00:12:42] So you get to hear you get to hear the opposite perspectives. And I'm looking forward to that one in particular.

Buddy Creech: [00:12:49] I love it. You know, I think I'm in the same way. I love the ones where we have to watch people think and they have to sort of show their work on that. So I'm always going to be a little bit biased towards challenging cases discussions because the magic of that is never in getting the diagnosis right. It's thinking about the thought process. It's building the differential, why you would prioritize one thing over another. And I get really excited about those. If for no other reason, then it's simply awesome to watch someone eight x smarter than I completely flail around and miss a diagnosis because that makes me feel much better in my inner core. And yet as they're missing the diagnosis, they're giving me pearl after pearl after pearl about what to look for in a disease process. And I think for our junior trainees, this is one of those I think to prioritize because how we build those differentials, how we think about it mechanistically, those are always exciting. And then staying on mechanism, those are the other ones that I get really geeked out about, are any of the symposia that have a combination of what's happening clinically, what's happening with this particular pathogen from a research standpoint, and where's the field going, let's say with vaccine development, anything that hits that three legged stool for me, I mean, I grab my popcorn and a fresh latte and I'm good to go. Those are some ones that that really get me going.

Paul Sax: [00:14:16] So can I ask the two of you a question?

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:14:18] Yeah.

Buddy Creech: [00:14:18] Yeah.

Paul Sax: [00:14:19] All right. So I remember going to IDWeek last year, October of 2022. You know, we were all still kind of trembling about face-to-face meetings where doctors, after all, we'd been largely separated from our colleagues because of the pandemic. And there we were. And there was a requirement for masks inside during the meeting. And yet as soon as the meeting ended, people went to their hotels, took their masks off, went out to dinner or drinks with their friends, and acted as if the, you know, the the serious part of the pandemic was over and there was a schizophrenia about it that I think we all lived with. Now, what do you predict, Mati, Buddy, will be the response this year? We're talking ID doctors. Go ahead, Mati. What do you what do you think's going to happen?

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:15:20] Of course you're going to put me on the spot, first of all.

Buddy Creech: [00:15:23] [laughs]

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:15:23] Of course you are. I'm telling you, I feel like these two have just intentionally decided that it's going to be me. I actually have seen such a high level of Covid burnout and just intentional, not wanting, you know, as a as a health director for a major city, I can tell you that our cases have tripled within the last month. Right? So I lived the nightmare of having absolutely no backup to enforce any kind of reasonable public health mandate or even strong recommendations around this, because we've been told, right, it's over. It's over. And no one politically is going to support me doing that, whilst I know what I should be telling people to do. So I'm a hopeful person and I'm like, but this is ID this is us. So obviously we're going to lead the charge. I'm not as hopeful, Paul. I think that the burnout extends even to our community. I think I'm going to predict maybe a little bit more than 50%, and 50% is high for some of the other conferences, but again, non ID-related that I've been to this year for indoor masking. And I would say social gatherings, I'd be impressed to see 10%. And it's a sad indictment on the times, but I hope to be proven wrong.

Buddy Creech: [00:16:35] Well, I'm going to take a hot take here. It's almost like we're having a debate, so this is good because I'm ill prepared for it.

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:16:41] [laughs]

Buddy Creech: [00:16:41] But I'm actually going to, I'm going to take the under of 50%. I'm going to say that probably only about a third will be masked. I think those who are going to be masked, are going to be probably those who have either had a recent illness and they may still be shedding virus, whatever virus it might be, or those who may have underlying reasons because they want to wear a mask, maybe they live with someone who's immunocompromised or maybe they're an extreme of age, whatever it might be. And I think that the beauty of our field right now is going to be that there's a lot of different ways to do this right now. We are at a different time in the pandemic. We do get to enjoy being face to face with each other, and that's how most of human history has been. I think the challenge of it is that it got stigmatized so badly in our culture, in part because maybe we should learn how to communicate it a little bit better. We got a lot better at the end of the pandemic than we were at the beginning. But at the end of the day, we needed to do some things because people were dying and our hospitals were full.

Buddy Creech: [00:17:45] I don't know if it's going to be the best thing since sliced bread, but can you help us out and put a thing on your face? It seems like an easy ask, and yet it just got hyper politicized. So I can tell you, I couldn't be more thankful for the FDA and ACIP approving and now giving instructions for use for Covid boosters. And so between now and October 6th or seventh, there's going to be a lot of people getting vaccinated with an XBB containing Covid vaccine. And at least from a Covid standpoint, it's going to help us. A lot of folks are getting their flu vaccine. We'll see if we see an early flu season. So I think we're returning to a time where when we're sick or when we're at high risk for illness, mask up. If anyone has not read Stanley Plotkin's experience with developing RSV after a neighbor sitting next to him at a conference was coughing inevitably in the throes of RSV themselves, You should read it because at the end of the day, one of the things that marks our field is a care and a support for one another. And so if in doubt, mask it up, that's what I would say.

Paul Sax: [00:18:55] Or if you're sick, do it virtually.

Buddy Creech: [00:19:01] Exactly. Could not agree more. This is not one that you power through.

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:19:04] Please. Please do it virtually.

Paul Sax: [00:19:07] I'm going to take the view that severe Covid right now I'm talking about hospitalization level Covid, Covid, pneumonitis and ICU filling Covid is now pretty unusual in immunocompetent hosts. And what we see mostly in the hospital are people who are the kind of individuals who struggle with all respiratory viruses. They're older or they have other medical problems, or they're immunocompromised. And so that has normalized this novel virus. And as a result, we in ID, as ID doctors, will at this meeting be acting much more like we did pre-pandemic. That's what I think's going to happen.

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:19:48] Yeah.

Paul Sax: [00:19:49] Anyway, just thought I'd ask that question.

Buddy Creech: [00:19:51] No, I think this is perfect. No, this is great. Because again, if I were an early trainee not having been to an IDWeek like this, I might have a little bit of apprehension about what's expected of me. Right. I remember when I was a first-year fellow coming to this meeting, I didn't know what to wear. I didn't know what to do. I had to get some advice from more senior colleagues. So for those junior trainees, for those first year folks that are coming for their first time, Paul, what are some what are some things that you would suggest are just things to think about for first time attendees, especially those junior folks.

Paul Sax: [00:20:26] Have a good time, re-energize in the field. Don't be shy. Make plans with your friends and colleagues. You know, schedule yourself a lunch and a dinner with your pals. It's as much a social event as it is an educational one. And I think people should remember that.

Buddy Creech: [00:20:43] Love that. Mati, what do you think?

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:20:45] Paul is right on the money. I think that has to be the number one priority. The number two, I would say, because, you know, a lot of my mentees, especially the introverts, are always anxious about how to develop mentorship or sponsorship relationships. This is a key time to do that. If there's someone you connect with or someone who's talk or research connects with you, I would say use this as an opportunity to be bold. Go over, ask them for the best way to follow up. Ask them if they have time for coffee before they leave on Sunday or whatever day they leave or an email address. Right. So try to just give yourself one of those if you are looking for more mentorship or sponsorship. And my second tip would be there's a lot of fantastic pre-workshop activities for fellows, and one of those is around mentorship and sponsorship. Please go to the website and check those out and sign up now. If you're one of those people who needs support for standardized test taking and things of that nature, there's support for those types of courses as well. So for our trainees, I would look into those as well.

Buddy Creech: [00:21:44] Yeah, I love that and I love the idea of really leaning into mentorship and sponsorship because it was easy for me because my mentor, Kathy Edwards, was at every IDWeek as I was. It felt like she made it her mission to introduce me to literally everybody, especially those that were important for staph aureus research or for vaccine research. I just was like a little baby bird. And she had me under the wing taking me around and really supporting me. And so this would just be a reminder to those who are fellowship directors who have junior trainees that are coming, medical students, what have you. Be intentional as a division or as a practice or as a group in making sure that those first timers, that they really have your ear, that you're looking out for them, you're sitting next to them, you're inviting them to dinners. I think that's the way that you fold people in. And from a recruitment standpoint, I will tell you, that's what we're doing. We in PIDS launched something called Meet ID, where three times a year for our big pediatric meetings, which IDWeek is one of those. Of course, we're providing travel scholarships for these individuals to come, and a lot of them are medical students. Some are in late undergrad or postbac years to have a dedicated group of folks with mentors over top of them helping shepherd them through the meeting. It's a really powerful way to do it. So be on the lookout for them. All right. We're going to go Rapid Fire as we wrap this up. Paul, favorite piece of swag that you've ever received in a meeting? Go.

Paul Sax: [00:23:17] Oh, okay. I went to the International Aids Conference in Amsterdam and they gave out a very slim laptop case. Like so slim. You wouldn't believe it. It was like a tiny little thing. And I thought, what is this thing? And it turns out it is absolutely the best thing to carry your laptop around, in the world. You can only put your laptop on the charger in there. Forget it. Maybe a pen or two. But that's all you need. And I bring it to every meeting.

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:23:51] So jealous right now because I need something like that.

Buddy Creech: [00:23:54] Mati, what have you gotten, though? I'm sure that you've picked up some swag at these meetings.

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:23:58] So boring. But I am a mug girl to the core, and I can't remember what year it was, but everybody knows not all coffee mugs are made equal.

Buddy Creech: [00:24:09] Amen.

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:24:09] They leak. They don't stay warm. And there was one year, man, where IDSA nailed it. I can't remember. I wanted to bring it with me to show it to you guys today. But when I tell you it is the single best coffee mug I've ever had. And there was one day that almost broke our marriage that my husband put it in the dishwasher, and something happened and it cracked. And I may have had to take a little bit of a time out from him from a day, because I've never had a coffee mug that stood up to that. So I'm hoping they bring back the good old coffee mug, man.

Buddy Creech: [00:24:40] Yeah, you and I are simpatico on this. The travel mug is critical. I'm going to tell you my best one. I always look for the water bottles because I got, you know, hydrate or diedrate at these meetings. You got to stay hydrated. And I got one that has a speaker, a Bluetooth speaker, for the cap. So it's a fantastic water bottle. And oh, by the way, I can play some sweet tunes on the lid. And it's bizarre. I don't know why someone thought to put a Bluetooth speaker on top of a water bottle, but why wouldn't you do that? It's fantastic.

Buddy Creech: [00:25:12] All right. Second one now you've got to go with me on this. I need you to trust me. We're in the trust tree right now. We're among friends. I would love to hear your most embarrassing conference story. And you know what I'll lead.

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:25:26] Folks on the podcast, you can't see me right now, but I'm shaking my head with disappointment that I'm being told to release this to the public.

Buddy Creech: [00:25:35] You know what this is a free space. You can certainly certainly pass. I will lead. I will show in good faith. My favorite was one of my early days of making a poster. I failed to do what the FedEx guys told me to do, which was to proof my poster before I brought it. And I was like, I'm sure it's going to be fine. I've done this once or twice before. It always turns out fine. I don't want to have to unroll it, which is so hard or something. I pull it out, in the hotel room and all of my fingers, which I mean, they were like five of them were just all white. There was, there was no figure. There was some graphical interface issue because I hadn't done it in PDF, and they just weren't there. So I had to go and print life size versions of all the figures and try to glue them onto the poster and then thumbtack them. It was the jankiest poster that any human being has ever made because I'm trying to retrofit it in the last hour. It was, it was bad. And then I'm having these people come to my poster who I tremendously respect, and they're like, Hey, nice, uh, nice use of thumbtacks?" Like, what are what in the world. It looked like I was a complete rook.

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:26:48] I will see your white font and I will raise you, stressed fellow. Here it is, sent to print too late. Picked up the poster. Poster may or may not have been cut off in half. Giant sized and an actual abomination to posters, had to decide between not showing up on poster day or showing up and standing next to said abomination in front of all of my division leader. Chose the latter, wanted to die, did cry in the hotel afterwards, have lived to see another day though.

Buddy Creech: [00:27:23] This is awesome.

Paul Sax: [00:27:25] I'm going to say that one of one of, uh, a very memorable, embarrassing time for me is going to be in honor of, of a late colleague of mine, who was the great Paul Farmer. And Paul Farmer, who, you know, basically devoted his entire life to helping people in underserved countries or just people who were down and out no matter where they were. And he was an amazing person. And when we were younger ID doctors, we looked kind of alike. And I remember going to one IDWeek meeting and someone came up to me and said, I am inspired by your work. Your work is the reason why I have become an infectious disease doctor. And I just want to tell you, thank you. And I was like taken aback and was glowing and thinking, This is amazing. And then she said, and by the way, the work you do for tuberculosis and HIV in Haiti is just remarkable. And I'd love to come work with you if I could. And I said, You've got the wrong Paul in ID, you want my colleague Paul Farmer, and I'm Paul Sax.

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:28:38] Paul, a couple of things. Number one, to even look like Paul Farmer, I would take a win.

Buddy Creech: [00:28:44] Yep, that's a win. That's 100% win.

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:28:46] Two. Don't you even try it. Because I know that me wide eyed and bushy tailed was falling over myself to meet you for the first-time last year at IDWeek. So don't even start that. So I'm sure you've got your own genuine Paul Sax, you know fan club.

Buddy Creech: [00:29:02] Absolutely.

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:29:03] But I'll give you this. I'll give you this one.

Paul Sax: [00:29:06] Working with Paul Farmer when he, you know, he used to like attend at our hospital on the ID service. It was kind of like if Paul McCartney literally came by.

Buddy Creech: [00:29:16] [laughs]

Paul Sax: [00:29:16] And decided to do an impromptu lesson in how to play the guitar, play the bass and sing.

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:29:25] My first two books in ID as a young, when I still lived in Zimbabwe, in high school, because I always knew this was it for me. The band played on Paul Sax's first book and they are in my.

Paul Sax: [00:29:37] Paul.

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:29:37] Paul Farmer! [laughs]

Buddy Creech: [00:29:39] [laughs] There it is. See, it's so easy.

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:29:41] I didn't even plan it. [laughs] Paul Farmer's first book and it's in my library to this day. Like my husband knows why that book means so much to me. So you're so right.

Paul Sax: [00:29:51] Mountains Beyond Mountains is the book about him. Amazing.

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:29:54] You already know. If I may, Buddy, I want to just plug two things, if that's okay.

Buddy Creech: [00:29:59] I want you to. Yes.

Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: [00:30:00] The first is I'm really excited about the session number #25 "Prioritizing inclusion, diversity, access and equity in infectious diseases, training and faculty recruitment." We all know the big elephant in the room is we had a rough fellowship match last year. The numbers aren't looking good already this year. A lot of people in leadership are looking towards, in the short term and long term, what can we do. But to have this powerhouse list of people Ravina Kullar, the incomparable Jasmine Marcelin, Shanta Zimmer, I mean, this is a powerhouse. Dawd Siraj and Shirley Delair are going to be coming to talk about this. I just really think that folks are try to prioritize this and education and leadership and academic institutions. I think it's going to be really exciting. Um, I'd also say that our Latinx community are having a dance party during that week. And last year I heard about their secret meeting and how joyful there was, and this time, there will be music and there will be dancing. So I would definitely try to link up with them. Even if you're not in the community, they say all are welcome.

Paul Sax: [00:31:07] Great.

Buddy Creech: [00:31:07] That's fantastic. Well, there you have it. You've got to be at IDWeek this year. Hopefully each of us will create our own embarrassing stories over the years because that's what we do among friends. This is a really special time. It's our community. It's those that we develop some of the longest relationships with, and it's a place where we can learn. And being able to put all of that together, learning in community, having support, doing that together, it's a really special time. If you have any questions about IDWeek, head over to IDWweek.org for all the details that you need to make it a great meeting. Mati and Paul, thank you for joining me today. Until next time, this is Buddy Creech with Let's Talk ID.