A Renaissance of Infectious Disease Interest

With the recent emerging pandemic, we as a society have started to understand how important healthcare workers and facilities are. Just within the last year, this realization has sparked many young people to pursue a career in medicine with the number of medical school applications significantly increasing at both the University of Minnesota- Twin Cities and the University of Minnesota- Duluth. One medical student at the University of Minnesota used her interest in the field of infectious diseases to start a group called the Infectious Disease Interest Group (IDIG) through the medical school. To help spearhead the project and to inquire more about his expertise in the subject, she reached out to Mark Schleiss, MD, Professor in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Immunology. 

Since connecting and initiating the group, IDIG has earned additional funding from the Infectious Diseases Society of America, allowing the group to host special events and seminars to engage participants' interest and to create networking and career opportunities for those interested. In the future, they hope to explore a variety of career paths as the study of infectious diseases and immunology is such a diverse field encompassing clinical practice, research, pharmaceuticals, and even ecology. To read more about the new group and Dr. Schleiss’s role in working with medical students to relay his knowledge of the infectious diseases field, follow this link.