Bear meat infecting people with a rare parasite was the subject of a recent article in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The case was a headline grabber, but for former Morgantown resident Dr. Shama Cash-Goldwasser, the article on which she served as lead author was the final chapter in two years of work in the CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS).
EIS officers are often called the disease detectives.
“I was new to public health at the state level, and the first trichinellosis case was reported right when I started as an EIS officer in Minnesota,” Cash-Goldwasser said. “On top of that, trichinellosis is a rare disease in the United States, and I had never seen a case, so I had a lot to learn.”
Before joining EIS, Cash-Goldwasser completed a fellowship in infectious diseases at Stanford University. Her medical degree is from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and she earned her Master of Public Health degree at the University of Michigan.
“My family had been living abroad, in Malawi and Thailand, and moved to Morgantown when I was about 7,” Cash-Goldwasser said.
In Morgantown, she attended Mountainview Elementary School and South Middle School before becoming a home-school student so she could devote more time to practicing cello. She also took academic courses at Morgantown High School and at West Virginia University.
So how does a cellist who won a spot at Oberlin Conservatory of Music end up as a disease detective?
While pursuing her degree in cello performance, Cash-Goldwasser also earned a degree in biology from Oberlin College. Her intent, when she entered the University of Michigan, was to continue her cello studies. However, she was eventually drawn to the School of Public Health and from there to medical training.
Cash-Goldwasser said she had seen people in need of stronger medical and public health systems while she lived abroad, and that influenced an eventual career goal of hers: to improve the health of people, on an individual and population level, where it is needed most.
But she points out that it’s not just the need she saw overseas that drew her to medicine and public health. Her years growing up in West Virginia also affected her eventual career choice.
“It’s also growing up in a state with substantial public health challenges,” she said. “Awareness of this also inspired me to do what I’m doing now. I had the feeling during my medical training that treating individual patients was not enough for me, and there is a lot that needs to be done for many different populations in the U.S. and globally.”
Cash-Goldwasser also credits many mentors along the way, as well as the benefit of collaboration.
What stands out about the trichinellosis outbreak to Cash-Goldwasser is not just how unusual it was. It was the dozens of public health practitioners, scientists and physicians in the United States and Canada who worked together to determine the source of the outbreak.
“This was a collaborative effort involving many people, and it spanned my whole EIS experience,” she said.
EIS officers serve for two years, so Cash-Goldwasser now has a new chapter in front of her. She has joined CDC as a medical officer in the Pox and Rabies Branch within the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases.
