Almost 30 years later, I have a renewed passion for adolescent and young adult pharyngitis.  I remember how naive I was doing my first sore throat study.  I look at my writing and shudder.

During these years I have had incredible opportunities in academic medicine.  Periodically I would come back to pharyngitis – the clinical problem that gave me academic credibility.

I always cared about this problem, because I felt that I looked at pharyngitis through the eyes of a “real doctor”.  My first consideration always focused on how physicians in offices, walk-in clinics or emergency rooms saw pharyngitis.

Over time I changed my focus to the patient.  Experience taught me that teenagers and 20 somethings with pharyngitis felt miserable.  How could we make them feel better faster?

I never thought that group A strep should be the only consideration.  My earliest research helped me understand the importance of non-group A strep.  But I never accepted that patients with significant symptoms and exudates had routine viral infections.

Learning of Fusobacterium necrophorum fit my view of sore throats.  While the puzzle is not yet complete, adding F. necrophorum to the pharyngitis paradigm makes the picture more clear.

I started studying the most mundane of clinical complaints.  Now with renewed enthusiasm, I am studying and writing about a disease that can portend great danger.  I find great intellectual satisfaction through understanding the nuances of pharyngitis.  I find great emotional energy in trying to help teenagers and 20 somethings.

I have been smiling all week.  My paper will likely make a difference, and that really is why we write papers.  And this blog and you the loyal readers have made all the difference in how I view this problem.

Thanks