The teaching of infectious diseases will focus both on organ infections, such as pneumonia, meningitis, bacteremia and all other locations, and on the identification of etiological agents. The recognition of the clinical presentations of infectious diseases and septic syndromes will be treated extensively, to allow the student to recognize and be able to distinguish the emergencies in infectious diseases, such as sepsis and meningo-encephalitis, and to learn how to choose the most probable diagnostic hypotheses, to which to associate the best reasoned diagnostic procedure. The presentation of clinical cases at the end of the frontal lessons will always support the theme of the lesson, prompting students to reason on the possible differential diagnoses for each individual case. The Module also provides knowledge of the essential principles of anti-infective therapy with particular reference to the appropriate use of both antivirals and antibiotics, together with their impact on the development of antibiotic resistance and the consequent clinical-therapeutic implications. In other integral parts of the course, albeit within the limits of the details necessary for Medicine and Surgery students, emerging infectious diseases, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV infection will be presented.
At the end of the course, the students will have acquired sufficient knowledge on infectious agents and understanding of the diagnostic pathways to be applied to individual clinical cases, together with the ability to interpret the results; finally, they will have to demonstrate their ability to clinical reasoning and orientation in the scientific aspects of each individual infectious disease.