What brought you to study and treat infectious disease?
“I became a doctor in order to heal patients, and to advance our understanding of medical science,” he said. “Cancer can be very frightening, but in most cases it can also be treated! Patients with cancer deserve our attention, time, and compassion.” Dr. Pottinger directs several efforts within UWMC. He directs the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program, which aims to improve the use of anti-infective medications for patients; and he also directs the UWMC Tropical Medicine & General Infectious Disease Clinic where patients are treated for a broad variety of infectious diseases, including illnesses in returning travelers, patients requiring follow-up while undergoing outpatient intravenous antibiotic treatment, and infections in immunosuppressed patients. “I am a clinician-educator, but I also investigate the ways in which infectious diseases can be prevented and optimally treated,” Dr. Pottinger said. In his work, he also collaborates with colleagues at UW, Johns Hopkins University, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre in Moshi, Tanzania, and Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda to bring a comprehensive tropical medicine training course to East Africa. Author of numerous textbook chapters, papers, and abstracts dedicated to topics in general infectious diseases, Dr. Pottinger directs and teaches a variety of courses at the UW School of Medicine and delivers approximately 50 formal lectures per year. In his lifetime, he hopes to see continued progress in the prevention and treatment of infections that complicate cancer treatment. Until then, in his spare time he enjoys spending time with his family and following his passion for mountaineering.
