FLICKR, ALDEN CHADWICK
Last summer, infectious disease specialist Gregory Poland saw a patient at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, who had a fever, a rash, kidney failure, and—despite seeing several doctors—no diagnosis. Only after talking with the patient for hours and digging into her medical and travel history could Poland generate a potential diagnosis. To test his theory, he had to send a serum sample to researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, who confirmed that his patient had chikungunya.
Situations like this, explained Poland, are not uncommon. “I can’t tell you how many times we don’t know what’s going on,” he said. When tests for all of the usual suspects come back negative, it’s difficult to know what to try next. ...
