• Understand the causes of MRSA and how it is transmitted.
• Show how MRSA is creating greater infection control challenges.
• Identify the risk factors for developing MRSA.
• Discuss the merits of current tests for MRSA.
• Apply proper prevention strategies in the long-term care environment.

About the Speakers

Dr. John A. Jernigan is currently Deputy Branch Chief of the Prevention and Response Branch, Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC), and Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases. He attended medical school at Vanderbilt University, where he also completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine, and served as Chief Medical Resident. Following his residency, he spent a year practicing medicine in East Africa, then returned to the United States to complete his fellowship in Infectious Diseases at the University of Virginia, where he also earned a Masters Degree in Epidemiology. He joined the faculty of Emory University in 1994, and became Hospital Epidemiologist at Emory University Hospital in 1995. In Spring 2000, he joined the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion at the CDC, but maintains his faculty appointment in the Emory Division of Infectious Diseases. He has served on the

Board of Directors for both the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA). He was named the SHEA Investigator awardee in 2005.

Dr. Mary-Claire Roghmann is an infectious disease physician and epidemiologist whose research focuses on the molecular epidemiology of S. aureus. She received her M.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and her M.S. from the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at the University of Maryland. Dr. Roghmann is an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine. For the past ten years, she has been the Hospital Epidemiologist for the VA Maryland Health Care System. She also teaches clinical research skills as Principal Investigator for the Clinical Research Curriculum Award (K30).

Dr. Roghmann studies antimicrobial resistant pathogens, particularly MRSA. Her research focuses on understanding the transmission of S. aureus and the impact of S. aureus infections on patients and the healthcare system. She has published over 40 papers. She has funding from the Veterans Health Administration Research and Development (VA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to study antibiotic resistance in the health care setting.

Dr. Carolyn Gould is an Infectious Diseases physician and is currently a Medical Epidemiologist in the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She is also an Assistant Professor at Emory University in the Division of Infectious Diseases and previously served as Associate Hospital Epidemiologist at Emory Crawford Long Hospital. Her roles at the CDC include responding to healthcare-associated infectious disease outbreaks and developing guidelines and initiatives to prevent healthcare-associated infections and antibiotic resistance. She has a special interest in preventing infections in the long-term acute care setting.