For more than a quarter-century, the Division of Infectious Diseases has presented an annual symposium for area clinicians on the latest diagnostics and treatments for the most pressing and recurrent conditions they will encounter. The day’s presentation delivered earlier this month at a downtown Iowa City conference center continued the tradition in its 26th year.

Another tradition that also seems to hold is the reunion of friends and colleagues. Last year, conference director Ben Appenheimer, MD, welcomed back former faculty members Dan Diekema, MD, MS, and Jorge Salinas, MD; the year before that, former infectious diseases fellow Samantha Kouba, DO, was among the familiar faces on the presenter’s stage.

[Check out the full schedule here.]

Invited presenters from outside the University of Iowa’s current faculty and fellows may have more tangential or distant relationships with Iowa but were still welcome nonetheless. Karolyn Wanat, MD, chair and professor of dermatology at the Medical College of Wisconsin led the day with an overview of how certain infectious diseases manifest on the skin. Former UI faculty member Carl LeBuhn, MD, closed the session in the afternoon leading a panel of current UI clinicians through complex cases in order to reveal their processes of diagnostic reasoning.

In-between, presenters delivered engaging and relevant updates on everything from managing latent tuberculosis to avian influenza’s current spread within the United States. Throughout the day as well, attendees and presenters reconnected or formed new connections that they will carry on with them throughout the year and the years to come.