Introduction
Ever since man was able to discover about microorganisms, they knew that they were as important and dangerous as higher levels of organisms such as insects, plants, or animals. They may not be visible to the naked eye but that doesn’t mean that they should be underestimated. After the discovery of these microorganisms, man was able to use them to their advantage, using them to process food, or even develop medicines. Even though these microorganisms are very helpful, some are very harmful as well. These harmful microorganisms are the ones that have cause plagues in the previous centuries, killing a number of the human population. Some have also caused common diseases that affect people’s daily lives. And some are still incurable until now.
The concerns for these microorganisms have grown since they were known to cause harm to humans. This is the reason why professionals in the medical field and in other scientific fields have came up with an organization that would help in understanding and controlling these harmful microorganisms that causes diseases, specifically the infectious ones which causes serious problems and threat to human beings. This organization is the Infectious Diseases Society of America or simply, the Idsociety.
History
The Idsociety was founded in 1963. This society included a group of American physicians, Microbiologists and those that are concentrating on clinical research and investigation. Initially, John E. Blair, the president of the American Society of Microbiologists offered a separate division for the infectious diseases under the said organization. However, Dr. Maxwell Finland decided to arrange a committee and formed a new independent organization which is known as the Infectious Diseases Society of America or Idsociety and Dr. Finland himself was the first president of the organization.
PURPOSE
The main goal of the Idsociety is to improve the health of the individuals worldwide through prevention of infectious diseases. With the collaboration of the greatest minds of the scientists and other professional healthcare providers worldwide, they aim to devote intensive researching and studying of such infectious diseases most especially those that have no cure as of the present. The organization also offers to provide information to the public with regards to infectious disease prevention for the betterment of the public health.
PROGRAMS
The Idsociety also has an education and research foundation in which they provide support to research and education for individuals to better provide the society with better and more equipped scientists and health care providers of information with regards to infectious diseases. Examples of their programs are the AIDS Training Program for Physicians, Medical Scholars Program, and program for Center for Global health policy.
The AIDS Training Program for Physicians offers training experience to physicians especially those that are in resource-constrained countries in HIV and AIDs care. This training program is a project of both the Idsociety and the HIV Medicine Association. The Medical Scholars Program aims to provide education to medical students who plan to pursue more understanding on infectious diseases. Lastly, the program for Center for Global health policy promotes evidence-based action on global HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis through gathering information and knowledge from the experts in the Idsociety and the Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates (HVMA).
