May 25, 2004 -- When your doctor smoothes his tie, leans over, places a stick in your mouth and asks you to say "ah," have you ever found yourself wondering where his tie has been? Steven Nurkin did. The fourth-year medical student at the Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine in Haifa, Israel, got to thinking that with hospital infections affecting 5-10 percent of all admitted patients, it might be interesting to analyze doctors' neckties for disease-causing pathogens.