Bugs And More Bugs

My micro charts that I study from!

 

Parvo is a single dude, 19 years old, and a perv. He likes to get naked, and travel the globe for children to stalk. He likes to breathe on them and put lacey things on them. After the fifth incident, one of the kids’ mothers finds out, slaps Parvo on the cheek. Parvo gets mad and kills the babies.

In other words, B19 is a naked single-stranded DNA (“Dude”) virus belonging to the Parvoviridae family. It infects mainly children and causes a slapped-cheek rash on the face and lacy, maculopapular rash on the trunk and limbs of the body. It infects by binding to globoside (blood group P antigen) on erythroid precursors. It is spread through respiratory droplets (“breathing”). This disease is called Fifth Disease (Erythema Infectiosum). If mothers get infected, the virus can pass across the placenta, infecting and killing the fetus (hydrops fetalis). To diagnose, find IgM and IgG in the serology.

This and hundreds of more “bugs” are what we will be covering this semester in Medical Microbiology. For each bug, we will learn the species, family, infectious agent, reservoir, transmission, risk factors, virulence factors, clinical diseases they each cause, method of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. In other words, it’s a lot of stuff to learn. How am I supposed to handle all this?

A good way to start is by making stories, and any med student would have a few good ones they use.

In my life, I’ve always loved doing things that would satisfy my drive to create: composing music, designing buildings, writing, drawing… In a way, I have found this opportunity in med micro. While it is one of the most intense classes I have taken so far in terms of rote memorization, it is a fun class because I can make up creative stories to try to let me remember all the details about the organisms and diseases. By the end of the semester, I’ll have lots of stories to tell you, and perhaps even more on Parvo later!

Here are the bugs we’ve covered so far:

Block 1:

  1. Measles Virus
  2. Rubella Virus
  3. B19 Virus
  4. Human Herpes Virus 6
  5. Streptococcus pyogenes
  6. Varicella-Zoster Virus
  7. Variola Virus
  8. Coxsackie A16 Virus
  9. Staphylococcus aureus
  10. Propionibacterium acnes
  11. Hemophilus influenza
  12. Streptococcus pneumoniae
  13. Neisseria gonorrhea
  14. Adenovirus
  15. Bacillus cereus
  16. Chlamydia trachomatis
  17. Pseudomonas aeruginosa
  18. Acanthamoeba castellani
  19. Aspergillus
  20. Fusarium
  21. Herpes Simplex Virus 1 and 2
  22. Loa loa
  23. Onchocerca volvulus
  24. Candida albicans
  25. Cytomegalovirus
  26. Toxoplasma gondii

Block 2

  1. Actinomyces israelii
  2. Pasteurella multocida
  3. Bartonella henselae
  4. Nocardia brasiliensis
  5. Streptobacillus moniliformis
  6. Eikenella corrodens
  7. Clostridium perfringens
  8. Vibrio vulnificus
  9. Francisella tularensis
  10. Leishmania
  11. Mycobacterium species
  12. Sporothrix schenckii
  13. Dracunculus medinesis
  14. Bacillus anthracis
  15. Orf virus
  16. Spirillum minus
  17. Human Papilloma Virus
  18. Molluscom contagiosum
  19. Microsporum
  20. Trichophyton
  21. Epidermophyton
  22. Malassezia furfur
  23. Salmonella species
  24. Trichinella spiralis
  25. Enterococcus faecalis
  26. Bacteroides fragilis
  27. Prevotella Melaninogenica
  28. Acinetobacter baumanii
  29. Neisseria meningitidis
  30. Streptococcus agalactiae
  31. Escherichia coli
  32. Listeria monocytogenes
  33. Cryptococcus neoformans
  34. Naegleria fowleri
  35. Togaviridae virus
  36. Flaviviridae virus
  37. Bunyaviridae virus
  38. Borrelia burgdoferi
  39. Rabies virus
  40. JC virus
  41. Polio virus
  42. Clostridium tetani
  43. Mycobacterium leprae
  44. Trypanosoma brucei species
  45. Echinococcus granulosus
  46. Taenia solium