Frank has been collecting information on cases from his clinical experience in pediatric
infectious diseases since the time of the publication of his previous book, Case Studies in Pediatric Diseases, in 2007.

In the previous book, most of the cases were from his experience in South Africa. In this book, almost all the cases are American. Frank has chosen cases that lend themselves to education and that cover a wide spectrum of clinical problems.

Frank's earliest memory about infections was hearing how, during WWII, his father made vaccine against Rickettsia prowazekii, the cause of epidemic typhus, and how he
contracted the infection. During medical school Frank had several interesting encounters with patients who had severe infections, and during his residency, in South Africa, much of his clinical experience was treating patients with infections. These included measles, pneumonia, gastroenteritis, bacteremia, and meningitis.

After pediatric residency, Frank trained for 18 months in medical microbiology, a basic element of clinical infectious diseases. He then undertook a fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases in Denver, Colorado, during most of which he studied immunity to chickenpox.