A pediatric medical resident at Northwestern University may have exposed hundreds of patients to tuberculosis (TB). The female physician, whose name has not been released, likely did not know she was infected with TB since she was diagnosed just last week. During the past ten months she has worked at three Chicago area hospitals-Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Children’s Memorial Hospital, and Evanston Hospital-where she had contacts with over 300 patients. TB can be transmitted via coughing, sneezing, talking – anytime saliva can be aerosolized. Tuberculosis is a difficult disease to contain for the very reason that those who harbor disease may not know they have it. Learn more about tuberculosis.
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Tags: Chicago, Northwestern, TB, tuberculosis
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Dr. Steven Chang, the author of DailyDose, is a staff physician with Kosmix RightHealth. Dr. Chang practices Family Medicine at the University of California Davis Medical Center, where his medical interests include both pediatric and geriatric care, public health, gay and lesbian health, and sleep medicine. Dr. Chang trained at the Stanford University affiliated O'Connor Hospital, and was a research fellow at the National Institute of Health. He holds an M.D. from McGill University and a BA in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University.
April 13th, 2009 at 3:23 am
My son was at Children’s Memorial twice during the time the resident was there. He had a cough for ovae 2 months. I plan on calling his Doctor today to confirm that he wasn’t exposed. This is really scarry!
April 13th, 2009 at 7:31 am
As far as I know no one has tested positive with TB yet. But it’s a good idea to check in with your son’s doctor.
April 13th, 2009 at 11:26 am
I was just in hospital NWM for overnight testing for pneumonia and had a young female residency attend me. Should I be concerned?
April 13th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
I am just a little confused..as an RN who has 27 years of experience we were never allowed to start any job without our TB Tine test!! Why was this physician allowed to?? We also had to have had a chest xray within a year and a complete physical that included all our immunizations up to date.Or did she catch it while on the job? That would be the only explaination!! This article does not explain that very well.
April 22nd, 2009 at 6:00 pm
i was at a christmas party this year and the lady sitting next to me is sneezing and coughing all my way and finally i said do you have a cold ?
She said well i had TB years ago and i am afraid it might be coming back i moved out of that room who in their right mind would go somewhere having TB and go into a room full of people and question the return of the disease without getting checked.?