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We have learned a lot about how to treat Ebola, how to ensure that the people caring for people with Ebola do so minimizing their risk of infection.

As life forms, viruses are just inherently interesting. It's the microworld - this universe of life too small for us to see - but it's profoundly complicated, and immensely powerful. Ebola is like a beautiful and frightening predator. There is a wonder in the operations of nature that can't be denied, even when we're the losers.

We know how to stop Ebola: by isolating and treating patients, tracing and monitoring their contacts, and breaking the chains of transmission.

In the ongoing effort to combat Ebola, more needs to be done to rewrite the public-health narrative. It must move from one that has been infused with fear to one that recognizes the hope for survival that supportive care can offer infected people.

The bottom line is that Ebola is hard to treat, and when the first patient ever with Ebola came to the United States, we thought the guidelines would protect the health care workers.

In my own career, I have always tried to treat my colleagues with respect and kindness, whoever they are, and am proud to have developed and mentored the careers of many excellent young scientists who will be tackling tomorrow's biological problems long after I have left the scene.

When I thought about having the greatest impact with my life, I thought about all the times people lose loved ones because diseases weren't detected early enough. I thought, 'I can play a role there.'

I worked in Syria on the front lines, and you hear the plane, you hear the shell is dropping, you realize it's not on you - 'Good' - and then you see the patients coming in and take care of them. And then you have down time. With Ebola, it seems there's no down time. It seems you're always at the front line; you're always exposed.

I think we learn from medicine everywhere that it is, at its heart, a human endeavor, requiring good science but also a limitless curiosity and interest in your fellow human being, and that the physician-patient relationship is key; all else follows from it.