With CDC, Srinivasan is half doctor, half detective

[Guest guest]

With CDC, Srinivasan is half doctor, half detective

IndUS Business Journal - Waltham,MA

By Imbesi

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ATLANTA — If there was ever room for another television series,

network executives should put a phone call into Dr. Arjun Srinivasan

at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about his job as

a " medical detective. "

" We are called to help investigate unknown problems, and to try find

the cause and find the solution, " he said.

Srinivasan, 35, is a medical epidemiologist in the Atlanta-based

CDC's division of health-care quality promotion. He is also a Lt.

Commander in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. His

division is responsible for improving health-care quality, with a

focus on infectious complications. He specifically deals with

outbreaks of infections in health-care facilities, and some of the

cases he is involved with sound like they are ready for a Hollywood

script.

For instance, he recently dealt with blood infections that occurred

in a number of hospitals around the country that were related to a

solution contaminated with bacteria. In another case, he found an

unusual bacteria in young children and babies that was related to a

contaminated respiratory device. Two years ago, he investigated a

case where an organ donor was infected with rabies and four people

who received organs died as a result.

He is also involved with the contact solution case that has been in

the national headlines lately. Bausch & Lomb recently recalled its

Renu MoistureLoc contact solution because it was causing an eye

fungus that could lead to blindness. According to a statement by the

U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Bausch & Lomb decided

to " permanently remove " this solution worldwide. The FDA and CDC led

a joint investigation on this product. Srinivasan is assisting in

this case because he often deals with product contamination issues

(the fungal group of the CDC is leading the organization's

investigation).

In all of these outbreak cases, Srinivasan is half doctor and half

detective.

His job is to gather infected patient information within a health-

care facility, come up with ideas on how the patient became

infected, investigate what possibly caused the infection and stop it

fast.

Srinivasan said he not only enjoys the outbreak investigation part

of his job, but also enjoys analyzing the information to see if

there are policy guidelines that can be changed to prevent future

outbreaks.

" We want to investigate and solve an individual outbreak, but just

as important is to try and disseminate those findings and

disseminate whatever recommendations can be made to the broader

community to perhaps prevent the outbreak from happening in other

places, " he said.

He said his job requires a lot of responsibility and pressure, and

that it can be stressful. When an outbreak occurs and people are

potentially getting sick, the CDC wants to solve the problem quickly

before another person becomes infected.

" We take the responsibility very, very seriously because we know

when people call us, they are calling us because they're having a

problem. And we take very seriously our responsibility to help them

solve that problem, " he said.

Another element of Srinivasan's job is communication. He said that

it is the patient's right to know what is happening, and he must

balance between a timely investigation and getting information out

to the public.

" You certainly don't want to put information out into the public

that's incorrect and it later has to be changed. But at the same

time, you want to inform the public as quickly as you can about what

you know, and about what you're doing to fix the problem. So we

always work very hard to strike the right balance, between gathering

information and being confident in the information, but still being

able to communicate rapidly, " he said.

Srinivasan — who grew up in , Miss., and whose parents are

from Bangalore — became involved with health-care epidemiology while

he was an infectious diseases fellow at s Hopkins University in

Baltimore. He was trained by well-known epidemiologist Dr. Trish

Perl. After his fellowship, he became the associate hospital

epidemiologist at s Hopkins where he continued to work under

Perl.

Perl, who worked with and trained Srinivasan for seven years, said

that he will be one of the public health leaders in the future. " I

think one day, he may be my boss, " said Perl, who is an associate

professor of medicine at s Hopkins University.

Perl said that Srinivasan has a " remarkable skill set, " because he

is articulate, nice, smart, and he has a lot of initiative. She said

that he is firm, but he also makes everyone feel good. Because of

his talent, Perl said she did not want to see him leave s

Hopkins.

Srinivasan admitted that most of the cases that he handles are

unusual cases. He said there are many experts at the CDC, and by the

time some situations reach his desk, they tend to be a bit strange.

However, Srinivasan likes working outside of the mainstream and

considers it an enjoyable challenge. " It's a really interesting job,

it's challenging all the time. And that's what makes it fun, " he

said.

[Guest guest]

-http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol10no1/03-0119.htm

-- In , " tigerpaw2c " <tigerpaw2c@...>

wrote:

>

> With CDC, Srinivasan is half doctor, half detective

> IndUS Business Journal - Waltham,MA

> By Imbesi

>

>