Infectious Disease Care

An infectious disease (ID) specialist is a physician who focuses on illnesses caused by harmful organisms — bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites. Most infections, like a cold or a routine ear infection, are handled just fine by your primary care doctor. An ID specialist steps in for the infections that are rare, severe, chronic, or simply haven't responded to the usual treatment — acting a bit like a detective, piecing together your symptoms, history, and lab results to figure out what's really going on.

Most of the time, another provider refers you to us — a primary care doctor, surgeon, or specialist who needs help diagnosing or managing an infection. Common reasons for a referral include:

• An infection that hasn't cleared up despite treatment, or keeps coming back
• A fever with no clear cause that lingers for days or weeks
• An infection that isn't responding to antibiotics (antibiotic resistance)
• A weakened immune system that puts you at higher risk for infection
• An infection following surgery, a wound, or a hospital stay
• Unusual lab results, like a high white blood cell count, that point to an infection

You don't need a referral to be seen at Midway — if you think you need an infectious disease specialist, you're welcome to schedule directly.

Your visit starts with a thorough conversation — your symptoms, medical history, medications, and details about your environment, like recent travel, pets, or outdoor exposure.

Infectious diseases — caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi, or parasites — can spread through direct or indirect contact with people or animals, or through contaminated food and insects. Not every infection is contagious. Pinpointing the exact cause is what allows us to treat your symptoms effectively and, when necessary, take the right steps to keep it from spreading to others.

To identify what we're dealing with, we may order:

• Cultures
• Biopsy
• Blood or urine tests
• Imaging tests
• Spinal taps
• Stool samples
• Throat swabs

Once we know what we're dealing with, we'll walk you through a treatment plan and coordinate with your other doctors so everyone's on the same page.

We evaluate, diagnose, and treat a wide range of infectious diseases, including:

• Abscess
• Campylobacter
• Cytomegalovirus (CMV)
• Diphtheria
• E. coli
• Eastern equine encephalitis
• Food poisoning
• Legionella (Legionnaires' disease)
• Lyme disease and other tick-borne illness
• Malaria
• Measles
• Meningitis
• Mumps
• Osteomyelitis (bone infection)
• Pneumonia
• Rocky Mountain spotted fever
• Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)
• Tetanus
• Toxic shock syndrome
• Traveler's diarrhea
• Tropical and travel-related illness
• Tuberculosis (TB)
• West Nile virus
• Whooping cough (pertussis)

We also provide ongoing care for ongoing or hard-to-treat infections, including:

• C. diff (Clostridioides difficile)
• Fungal infections
• Skin and soft-tissue infections
• Mononucleosis
• MRSA and other antibiotic-resistant infections
• Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections
• Salmonella
• Sepsis and bloodstream infections
• Staph infections
• Stomach and gastrointestinal infections
• Post-surgical and wound infections
• Transplant-related infections
• Infections in immunocompromised patients
• Fevers of unknown origin