RSFH House Calls_Picture of Health feat. Dr. Timothy West

photograph by Christopher shane picture of healthWork Hard, Name: Dr. Timothy WestPlay Hard specialty: Infectious disease outside the office, find HIM: From high in the sky to deep under Walking dogs Oliver (pictured here) the sea,Dr.TimothyWest finds balance and Sampa on local shores, swimming in adventure – by Stratton Lawrence laps, singing in his church’s choir, flying an engineless glider, and traveling theWhen the demands of work take their toll, world to scuba dive or ski. infectious disease doctorTimothyWest,MD, practice: finds that typical methods of disconnecting Lowcountry Infectious Diseases aren’t always enough. “I used to mow the www.lowcountry-id.com lawn to get my mind off work, but I’d still find details of the day replaying through my head,” says Dr.West, who is h o u s e c a l l s { fall 2014 } 39 chief of epidemiology at Roper St. Francis. The solution he eventually discovered to be more gratifying: solo flights in the engineless glider he purchased in 2007. “A plane tows me up to 3,000 feet and then I release the glider and stay aloft finding thermals, or columns of rising air created by the heating of the Earth’s surface,” Dr. West explains.“You can feel your heart—every beat—going, ‘thunk,thunk,’and you can’t think about anything else.” Dr. West flies about once a month out of a small airfield near Camden. He’s also an accomplished skier and scuba diver; within the last year, he stormed down powdery slopes in Utah, swam alongside whale sharks off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula,and frolicked with sea lions in the Sea of Cortez. This “work hard, play hard” approach is nothing new for the doctor. Raised in Indianapolis, Dr. West earned his undergraduate degree—and met his wife, Marcia—while at Harding University, a Christian college in Arkansas. He returned home to Indiana University to receive his doctorate, then an internship and subsequent residency and fellowship at MUSC brought the Wests to Charleston, where their two sons, Michael and Nathan, were born. After completion of the fellowship in infectious diseases, the family relocated to Buffalo, New York, where Dr. West taught as an assistant professor at the State University of New York School of Medicine and continued his research in endocarditis with a grant from the National Institutes of Health. While there, Dr. West began one of the first HIV

picture of health Adventure Doc: (clockwise from left) Dr. West and his wife, Marcia, take pup Sampa for a stroll on Sullivan’s Island; the doctor with his engineless glider; Dr. West (left) scuba diving in the Sea of Cortez with colleague Ed McNellis, MD, in 2013; and Dr. West skiing in Alta, Utah, last winter. clinics in the nation after and has even had the methods of MRSA p h o t o g r a p h s b y ( b e a c h ) c h r is t o p h e r s h a n e ; ( 3 ) c ou r t e s y o f D r . W e s tseeing the newly emerging disease in prisoners control used at Roper St. Francis publishedfrom New York’s Attica Correctional Facility. in the peer-reviewed journal Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology. When the family returned to the Lowcountryin 1986 and settled in Mount Pleasant,Dr.West That fact-based approach carries overwas one of just a handful of doctors treating the into his time off. Though gliding without an eventually recover from. It’s that way in life,area’s HIV patients.“When I got involved in the engine and diving deep into the ocean are too. My house burned down, but my familyfield, there was basically nothing known about inherently risky activities,Dr.West approaches was okay, and we went on.”it,”he says.“Today HIV treatment has advanced each methodically. He always dives with a Looking ahead, Dr. West plans to takegreatly. The outlook is quite favorable with partner—Marcia joined him in Mexico, and on new pursuits, as well. He hopes to startconsistent monitoring and patient adherenceto medications.” } }son Nathan dove with him to Roman ruins swimming laps more frequently (he currently “You can feel your heart—every beat—going, Although roughly 30 percent of his time isstill spent with HIV patients,Dr.West also treats ‘thunk,thunk,’and you can’t think about anythingboth viral hepatitis and MRSA (Staphylococcalinfections) from various sources, including else.”—Dr.TimothyWest,on flying a gliderprosthetic joints. And in the event of a majorinfectious outbreak (like the swine flu or Ebola off the coast of Israel several years prior—and hits the water about twice a week), and learnvirus), Dr. West would be directing treatment he never allows himself to venture far enough to play the guitar, which is a lifelong dreamon the front lines. In a field of medicine that in his glider to risk an unplanned landing. he’s excited to pursue.“I see music as anothercontinually faces new challenges, Dr.West relies “I make mistakes, but I know enough not to way of getting away from things and totallyon academic data above all else to stay up-to-date make the big mistakes,” he says. removing myself,” says Dr. West, who sings inon the latest diseases and hospital epidemiology, the Circular Congregational Church’s choir. Dr. West’s career has helped prepare him for the unforeseen challenges in life, as well, Whether the future brings more time spent especially when his family’s home burned gliding in the clouds, strumming a new guitar, down during a post-Hurricane Hugo rebuild. or treating the next emerging virulent virus, “For the most part in infectious diseases Dr. West will embrace it with an infectious medicine, you deal with illness that people can sense of adventure.40 { fall 2014 } h o u s e c a l l s