Tick-borne diseases: Free, evidence-based, AAAFP-accredited courses

Categories: Education

The diagnosis and treatment of tick-borne illnesses, including Lyme disease, is becoming increasingly complex and challenging as more and more infectious pathogens are identified. Ticks can be infected with bacteria, viruses and/or parasites and are able to transmit one or more of these infective agents through a single tick bite.

Currently, there are 10 known tick species in the U.S., which can transmit at least a dozen different diseases, such as Lyme disease, Anaplasmosis, Babesiosis, Bartonella, Rocky Mountain Spotted fever and the Powassan virus.

Diagnostic testing can be unreliable, clinical presentations are varied with symptoms often mimicking other conditions and treatment plans must be tailored for each patient based on manifestations and therapeutic response. ¹ Identifying the disease and determining the best treatment course requires a deep clinical understanding of all tick-borne diseases.

LymeCME offers practitioners evidence-based, AAAFP-accredited online courses to help expand their knowledge and skills in identifying tick-borne diseases and developing treatment regimes to improve patient outcomes.

Register For LymeCME courses

About Dr. Elizabeth Maloney

Dr. Elizabeth Maloney has been practicing family medicine in Minnesota for more than 2 decades. She received her medical degree from the University of Minnesota in 1986 and completed her residency in family medicine at the University in 1989.

Since 2007, Dr. Maloney has been providing accredited continuing medical education courses on Lyme and associated diseases to physicians. She co-authored treatment guidelines for Lyme disease in 2014 1 and has published several papers in peer-reviewed medical journals. Dr. Maloney speaks frequently at medical conferences throughout the U.S.

In February 2018 she was selected to serve on the Pathogenesis, Transmission and Treatment subcommittee of the federally mandated Tick-borne Disease Working Group. Additionally, she recently accepted an invitation to serve on a peer review committee for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

References:
  1. Cameron DJ, Johnson LB, Maloney EL. Evidence assessments and guideline recommendations in Lyme disease: the clinical management of known tick bites, erythema migrans rashes and persistent disease. Expert Rev Anti Infect Ther. 2014;12(9):1103–1135. doi:10.1586/14787210.2014.940900