{"id":11585,"date":"2026-03-04T18:10:43","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T00:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11585"},"modified":"2026-03-04T18:10:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T00:10:45","slug":"why-new-doctors-arent-specializing-in-infectious-diseases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2026\/03\/04\/why-new-doctors-arent-specializing-in-infectious-diseases\/","title":{"rendered":"Why new doctors aren&#8217;t specializing in infectious diseases"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/03\/02\/doctors-not-specializing-infectious-diseases\">Axios<\/a>  New doctors are increasingly moving away from specializing in infectious diseases as the prevalence of vaccine-preventable illnesses like&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/01\/22\/measles-cases-us-status-chart\">measles<\/a>&nbsp;and whooping cough ticks up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Why it matters:&nbsp;<\/strong>The Trump administration&#8217;s cuts to public health funding and its overhaul of federal vaccine policy may be putting even more of a damper on a field that took the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>It doesn&#8217;t help that the field has historically paid less than other specialties.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Interest from<\/strong>&nbsp;medical residents &#8220;was markedly worse&#8221; this year, said Wendy Armstrong, president-elect of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&#8220;I think that reflects the environment that we are in right now where our specialty has frankly been under attack.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>By the numbers:&nbsp;<\/strong>319 physicians applied for infectious disease fellowships that will begin later this year, compared with 404 at the specialty&#8217;s recent post-pandemic peak in 2021, according to data from the National Residency Matching Program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Doctors filled only about 61% infectious disease fellowship positions offered this year, compared with 88% of positions five years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/03\/02\/doctors-not-specializing-infectious-diseases\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<!-- <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"\/secure-location.php\" title=\"e SXgma bpx s LC\">e SXgma bpx s LC<\/a> --><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Axios New doctors are increasingly moving away from specializing in infectious diseases as the prevalence of vaccine-preventable illnesses like&nbsp;measles&nbsp;and whooping cough ticks up. Why it matters:&nbsp;The Trump administration&#8217;s cuts to public health funding and its overhaul of federal vaccine policy may be putting even more of a damper on a field that took the brunt [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emerging-infectious-diseases","category-featured-headlines"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11585"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11586,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11585\/revisions\/11586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}