Infectious Disease Fellowship
Training Infectious Diseases Experts
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) Division of Infectious Diseases offers an Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program to train future leaders in Infectious Diseases who excel in clinical care, research and education. The resources and mentorship available to our fellow trainees throughout BIDMC and our Harvard affiliations are unparalleled and we have close scholarship oversight and advising to ensure fellows accomplish highly successful and productive research endeavors throughout their fellowships and are ultimately prepared to build academic ID careers in clinical or basic science research as independently funded investigators.
For trainees interested in careers in medical education research or leadership, our affiliation with the BIDMC Shapiro Institute for Medical Education and the Department of Medicine Fellows’ Clinician Educator Track provides unique opportunities for fellow trainees to develop careers as national and international leaders in Infectious Disease medical education.
Additionally, our fellowship program offers training opportunities in various ID career paths including Antimicrobial Stewardship, Transplant Infectious Diseases, Quality and Patient Safety, Clinical Microbiology, Medicine-Pediatrics Infectious Diseases and Infection Prevention and Healthcare Epidemiology. Above all, our program aims to produce innovators in infectious diseases science, research and education, and master clinicians who are respected for their clinical skills, knowledge and compassionate patient care.
In our fully ACGME accredited fellowship, our fellows care for an extremely diverse patient population with a broad and complex spectrum of infectious diseases, including infections related to bone-marrow and solid organ transplantation, cancer therapies, diabetes complications, HIV, other immunocompromising conditions and therapies, surgical procedures, implants and prosthetic devices. Various fellowship ambulatory infectious diseases training opportunities at Cambridge Health Alliance, Dimock Community Health Center, Outer Cape Health Services, and Fenway Community Health Center further expand fellow opportunities to care for patients from the LGBTQ+ community and diverse ethnic backgrounds as well as people struggling with substance use disorders, low health literacy, and food or housing insecurity.
In our Infectious Diseases Fellowship, we create the space for our learners to follow their passions, shape their educational experiences, and become the infectious diseases clinicians, scientists, and educators that they hope to become.
Interested applicants should take our Infectious Diseases Fellowship Video Tour.
Contact the Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program at 617-632-0760 or mgunnin2@bidmc.harvard.edu
Leadership
Douglas S. Krakower, MD, Division Chief
Wendy Stead, MD, Fellowship Program Director
The following represents a snapshot of BIDMC's characteristics important to infectious diseases fellowship training:
- 649 licensed beds, including 440 medical/surgical beds, 77 critical care, and 60 OB/GYN
- Level 1 Trauma Center, roof-top heliport, ED services 54,000 patients/year
- Cancer Center, Transplant Programs (Bone Marrow Transplant and Solid Organ Transplants), Spine Center
- Care for more than 1500 HIV+ patients in the region
- Close collaboration with Joslin Diabetes Center, Boston Children's Hospital
- Ranks in the top 55 US NIH-funded institutions of 2019 Ranks
- Center for Life Science (CLS), a state-of-the-art biomedical research facility which opened its doors in 2008 and is the largest research facility in the Longwood medical area
Fellowship Program Overview
Year One:
- The first year of ID fellowship at BIDMC is focused primarily on learning the breadth and depth of clinical infectious diseases through rotations on the inpatient ID consult experience where fellows encounter diverse general ID-related problems on the medical and surgical services, as well as work with immunocompromised hosts (bone marrow and solid organ transplant), and patients on the OB-GYN service. In addition, fellows will rotate through the outpatient Ambulatory ID Clinics at BIDMC, Infection Control/Antimicrobial Stewardship, the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory and Boston Children's Hospital. Throughout the first two years of training, all fellows spend one-half day per week seeing patients with their assigned preceptor in their ID continuity clinic.
Year Two:
- Although fellows continue to have weekly outpatient continuity clinics and some limited weeks of inpatient ID consultation coverage, there is dedicated time during year two for exploring a variety of career development tracks with two and three (or more) year training options. Two-year Scholar Tracks provide focused training in specific content areas such as transplant ID, clinical microbiology, medical education, antimicrobial stewardship and infection control for fellows hoping to develop ID careers in these domains. For those interested in a more traditional research experience, there are options in clinical research, basic science and translational research, as well as advanced fellowships in Hospital Epidemiology, Antimicrobial Stewardship and Clinical Microbiology. Fellows choosing to pursue a career in clinical or translational research may apply for high yield educational opportunities such as the Summer Program in Clinical Effectiveness | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Applied Biostatistics, Grant Writing courses and more through the Harvard Catalyst Program.
- Fellows will work with their mentorship teams and program leadership to identify career and research goals, choose appropriate training tracks and courses and develop a structured plan and timeline to accomplish their training goals. Scholarly productivity is a requirement of BIDMC ID fellowship training and, based on fellow interests, program leaders/mentors will supervise their career development, including the development and implementation of research projects and publications. For fellows choosing to pursue additional research training years, mentors will ensure fellows develop successful grant-writing skills in order to obtain funding for project and salary support in the non-ACGME years and acquire the skillset to become independently funded investigators. Additional career development years in Antimicrobial Stewardship, Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, Clinical Microbiology or Transplant ID are also options for fellows interested in future careers and leadership roles in these areas.
Application Process
Candidates who have completed a residency in Internal Medicine or Medicine-Pediatrics will be considered for entry into the Infectious Diseases Fellowship Training Program. Candidates who have completed a residency in Medicine-Pediatrics may also apply for a four-year BIDMC-Boston Children's Hospital Combined ID Fellowship Training pathway in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics. This training pathway is a collaboration between BIDMC and Boston Children's Hospital Infectious Diseases Fellowship Programs. Applicants for this training path will be considered on a case-by-case basis and will submit applications to both programs. If invited for interviews, dates will be coordinated between BIDMC and BCH for the convenience of the applicant. Learn more about program requirements and how to apply.
Please peruse this slide show for our video tour, faculty and fellow testimonials and more!
Our ID Fellowship Clinical and Educational Highlights
Clinical Activities
1. The Inpatient Consultation Service
Consultation requests come to the Division of Infectious Diseases from all services within the BIDMC. The Division of Infectious Diseases provides consultation services for new requests and continued follow-up services for patients seen previously. There are two inpatient teaching consultative teams. One consultative team focuses on immunocompromised/transplant ID patients and the other team sees general ID patients. Each team averages 4-6 new consults per day. Each team includes two Infectious Diseases Fellows and a supervising Attending Infectious Diseases faculty member. By design, fellows work with their colleagues, learn from one another and faculty supervisors and distribute their workload. Members of the Division's Faculty directly supervise fellows on each of the consultation services. HMS students and BIDMC medical residents, as well as visiting trainees, rotate through these services and are an integral part of the team. Each first year fellow also spends one four-week rotation on the inpatient ID consultation service at Boston Children’s Hospital to gain knowledge regarding pediatric infectious diseases. In addition to the fellow teaching services, there are also three ID consult teams (ID Green, ID Yellow and ID Orange) which are staffed by an advanced practice practitioner and/or ID faculty. These teams are structured to take less acute/complex ID consults, follow up on OPAT patients that have not yet been discharged from the hospital and to help offload volume from the teaching services to maintain an appropriate balance of education vs service for our fellow trainees.
2. Outpatient Infectious Disease Care
Ambulatory training in outpatient infectious disease consultation and longitudinal care of HIV infected patients is an essential part of Infectious Diseases Fellowship training. This is considered part of the Core Clinical Curriculum, and takes place during the first and second years of training, with additional ambulatory experience beyond the first two years continuing depending upon the needs and goals of the trainee.
- Infectious Diseases Ambulatory Continuity Clinic: Each fellow spends one half-day session per week working with a designated faculty preceptor who is typically a continuous supervisor for the entire two years. This experience ensures, in a controlled and supervised manner, that fellows participate in the longitudinal continuity care of patients with HIV infection and provide consultative services to ambulatory patients with general Infectious Diseases problems. Each fellow also participates in the follow up of OPAT (Outpatient Parenteral Antibiotic Therapy) patients with nursing and administrative support for this intensive follow-up provided by the ID clinic OPAT program.
- ID Ambulatory Specialty/ “Synergy” Clinics: All fellows have one-week long blocks of a dedicated Ambulatory Clinic rotation, during which they see patients in various specialty ID clinics based on availability and interest (e.g. Hepatitis/HIV Clinic, Mycobacterial Diseases Clinic, Transplant ID Clinic, Urgent Care ID etc). First year fellows are assigned five-six blocks/year. During these rotations, fellows see patients for ~3 half-day sessions and the remainder of their free time is utilized for scholarly pursuits (conference planning, advisor/mentor meetings) and wellness (scheduling personal doctor and dentist appointments, etc).
- Elective Clinic Experiences: During the second fellowship year, additional ambulatory clinic experiences may be added if desired, including an additional longitudinal clinic for the care of patients with HIV, Hepatitis/HIV co-infection clinic, Transplant Infectious Diseases Clinic, TB/Mycobacterial Diseases clinic or Anal Dysplasia Clinic. Finally, additional ambulatory experiences in the care of patients with HIV, TB and/or viral hepatitis may be arranged at local community clinics affiliated with BIDMC such as Fenway Health Center, Dimock Community Health Center, Cambridge Health Alliance and in Provincetown, through the Outer Cape Health Services Clinic, under the supervision of division or affiliated faculty preceptors.
Fellowship Funding
For the two years of ACGME-accredited ID fellowship training, full salary support is provided by BIDMC. For fellows staying on for additional years for research or career development tracks, program leadership and fellow mentors work closely with fellows to secure necessary funding through various funding mechanisms.
Shared Harvard-Wide Activities
The BIDMC ID fellowship program collaboratively interacts with the other Harvard Medical School-affiliated ID fellowship programs at Boston Children's Hospital and at Mass General Brigham[SW(GM1] . Shared educational conferences among the ID programs include a weekly Wednesday morning conference that, in the early months, is focused on didactic educational offerings by senior faculty from the several programs and is followed thereafter by fellow-presented case conferences. There is also a shared HIV Summer Series Course. The BIDMC ID program also shares a weekly immunocompromised focused conference with Children's Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Center. We also participate in Harvard Medical School-wide Centers for AIDS Research (CFAR) conferences[SW(GM2] .
BIDMC Infectious Diseases Conferences
The BIDMC Infectious Diseases program has a weekly conference schedule outlined below that addresses a spectrum of curricular objectives within general ID, transplant and immunocompromised ID, HIV, Antimicrobial Stewardship, Clinical Microbiology, Musculoskeletal ID and more. These include several interprofessional conferences attended by clinical microbiology staff, pharmacists, and other case-specific disciplines in addition to ID faculty and trainees, nurses and case managers.
Our Training Opportunities
Medicine-Pediatrics Track
The Medicine-Pediatrics Track is the product of a collaboration between BIDMC and Boston Children’s Hospital Infectious Diseases Fellowship Programs and launched in 2014. The track accepts graduates of Medicine-Pediatrics residency training programs who are interested in continuing fellowship training in both adult and pediatric infectious diseases.
Research Investigation
Trainees interested in pursuing a career in research investigation have a wide variety of opportunities ranging from HIV clinical research including behavioral and epidemiologic studies to bench work focusing on host-responses and innate immunity. To make the transition to the research years, Fellows will work with a Faculty advisor during their first year of fellowship to supervise the fellows' development into an independent investigator.
Scholar Tracks
The BIDMC ID Fellowship scholar tracks are typically two-year training tracks designed for fellows to develop specific skills to launch future success in various ID career development pathways. Established scholar tracks, each led by experienced and dedicated faculty mentors, include Medical Education, Global Health, Antimicrobial Stewardship, Hospital Epidemiology, Transplant ID, Microbiology, HPV/High Resolution Anoscopy, Addiction and ID, and Quality Improvement. A new scholar track in Climate Change and ID is also being developed for those interested in research and advocacy at the intersection of these important content areas. Based on fellow career interest, additional clinical experiences may be part of these tracks and a focused scholarly project, with the guidance and support of track mentors, is expected.
Advanced Research Track
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Healthcare Epidemiology and Antimicrobial Stewardship Tracks
The Healthcare Epidemiology Track provides fellows with basic training in healthcare epidemiology, infection control and prevention. The fellow will become familiar with concepts relating to identification of and surveillance for healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), including antimicrobial-resistant and other epidemiologically important organisms; infection prevention strategies; outbreak investigation and control measures; and impact of HAIs on patient safety.