New faculty spotlight: Kelly Cawcutt, M.D.

• Name: Kelly Cawcutt, M.D.
• Hometown: Cloquet, Minn.
• New title and department at UNMC: Assistant professor, UNMC Department of Internal Medicine, division of infectious diseases (also working in critical care)

Research/professional interests: Dr. Cawcutt’s research interests are on prevention and management of infections in critically ill patients, with a focus on Clostridium difficile. She will be working on infectious diseases’ general hospital service in the outpatient clinic and also will be attending in the intensive care units.

Specialty:
Critical care and infectious diseases

Degrees:

• M.D., University of Minnesota
• Internal medicine residency completed at the University of Minnesota
• Critical care and infectious diseases fellowships completed at Mayo Clinic.

How I fell in love with science:
I loved science from an early age, and this, combined with my love of working with people and serving my community, led me to medicine. I trained in internal medicine, but my passion has always been with the sickest patients — those in the hospital and intensive care units. I love that both critical care and infectious diseases are two disciplines that are closely intertwined and in which any organ system may be involved with the underlying illness.

Memberships:

• American College of Physicians
• Society of Critical Care Medicine
• Infectious Diseases Society of America

Three things people may not know about me:

• I have a collection of bone china teacups that I started collecting over a decade before I ever drank tea or coffee.
• I have studied for all major exams since medical school with the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy
  playing in the background.

• I am so Scandinavian that my family still makes lutefisk every Christmas Eve.