Q&A:
Jose Bazan, D.O. (’04)
Infectious Disease
When
did you first know that you wanted to be a doctor?
When I was at the University of
Dayton, John Schriner invited me to a talk he was giving
about OU-HCOM at Grandview Hospital. I knew I wanted to
do microbiology, specifically infectious diseases, but I
was leaning towards the Ph.D. route until I met John. He
said, ‘Microbiology is good, but have you ever thought
about how those things truly affect patients?’ A light
bulb went off on my head, and that’s how I ended up
here.
Do you still conduct research?
My training so far has been mostly
clinical; that’s how internal medicine is. Now, as an
infectious disease fellow, I am researching the
transmission of HIV from mother to fetus—studying
placenta cells to identify cell receptors that HIV might
use to get through.
What
was your most memorable OU-HCOM experience?
Meeting my wife. In the second
year of med school, there was this regular OU-HCOM
volleyball game, and it could get pretty competitive. I
actually ended up breaking her arm during a game. So we
went to O’Bleness, and she had a pretty bad wrist
fracture on her writing hand. She was in a cast for six
weeks, so I took notes for her (laughs). About a year or
so ago she told me she actually never read the notes,
but she appreciated that I took them.
I
hope your first date was better.
It was. We had dinner at Seven
Sauces. She had to eat with her other hand.
What
should every medical student know about infectious
diseases?
You will deal with infectious
diseases whether you’re a primary care doctor, an
emergency room doctor, a surgeon—any field. You will
prescribe an antibiotic at least once a day. You have to
have a working knowledge of what you’re treating, how
and why.
It’s such an evolving field. No
matter what we throw at microbes, they come back. We
have to switch our thinking, develop new antibiotics.
We’re seeing new immune-suppressed patients, transplant
patients—you always have to be on your toes and
thinking, ‘How can I outsmart the microbe?’
