Clinical training

The majority of your first year is spent in clinical activities, including the inpatient and outpatient care of infectious diseases in children with complex medical and surgical problems. You provide care for many children with cancer or those undergoing stem cell or solid-organ transplantation, such as heart, liver, and kidney transplants.

You also rotate through the Olmsted County Tuberculosis Clinic, travel clinic, and the HIV clinic. In addition, two months during the first year is spent in the clinical microbiology laboratory.

During all non-inpatient months, you will have a one-half day per week community clinic in the outpatient setting.

Call frequency

Fellows take call from home on the evenings and weekends that they are assigned to the hospital service. Fellows take call one weekend a month during their second and third years when not on hospital service.

Teaching opportunities

Fellows have ample opportunities for teaching pediatric care residents and medical students in the clinical setting. As a fellow, you will lead the Antibiotic of the Month lecture series for pediatric residents. You also participate in morning report and the weekly chief's conference while on hospital service. In addition, you are assigned to give one noontime lecture to the pediatric residents and one adult ID Case & Research conference yearly.

During the third year, fellows present their research at Pediatric Grand Rounds and a research conference.

Evaluation

At the end of each rotation, faculty members complete written evaluations for each fellow. Faculty members are encouraged to discuss these evaluations directly with the fellow. Fellows meet informally with the program director each month to monitor progress and discuss any programmatic issues of interest.

In addition, fellows meet with the program director twice yearly in a more formal meeting to go over faculty evaluations, review short-term and long-term goals, and address any areas of concern that the fellow or program director may have. The fellow meets on the same frequency with their research mentor to discuss the progress of the research project.