Program Goal

The primary goal of the Division of Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program is to prepare the trainee as a consultant in clinical infectious diseases, and for a career in academic medicine by providing an environment for critical thinking with a broad range of opportunities in clinical, translational and basic research. The program duration is a minimum of two years, however, three or more years are encouraged to optimize the training period.

Curriculum Summary

The curriculum provides excellent clinical experiences involving a broad range of infectious diseases with a good balance between common and complicated problems in immunocompetent and immunocompromised hosts. The faculty, with their diverse interests and experiences, augment the broad educational experience available at a single site.

Research activity

Approximately half of the fellowship experience involves defined research activity that includes the planning and execution of either laboratory-based or clinically-oriented projects. In the middle of the first year of training, fellows meet with individual faculty members to decide on a specific research project, and to ensure that the projects are flexible enough to meet each individual fellow's needs. An advisory committee is then formed to provide guidance/mentorship on the project's design and progress; the expected culmination is the presentation and publication of results. A third year of fellowship is encouraged for fellows involved in a major research project.

Fellows have the opportunity to attend and prepare research for the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) and Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) international meetings and a variety of other basic science or clinical science meetings during their training.

Clinical experience.

Clinical training occurs primarily on The Ohio State University Medical Center campus. Both inpatient and outpatient experience with immunocompetent hosts with a wide variety of organ system infections as well as immunocompromised hosts such as HIV-infected, hematology/oncology and solid-organ and bone marrow transplant patients provide the basis for comprehensive clinical training. In addition, all fellows have 1/2 day per week of continuity clinic and spend one month at the Columbus Sexual Health Clinic . Practical and didactic training in clinical microbiology and hospital epidemiology/infection control complement the clinical training. During fellowship training, fellows attend the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology (SHEA) course in epidemiology.

The following are elements of the Fellowship program:

• Sexual Health Clinic
• Consult Service
• Clinical Microbiology mini-course 
• Basic Microbiology
• Molecular Diagnostics 
• Infection Control Committee
• AIDS Clinical Trials Unit (ACTU) Meeting
• Medical Student Education
• Infectious Diseases Clinical Case Conference
• Principles of Infectious Diseases (Book Club)
• Research Principles (Journal Club)
• Outpatient Clinic
• Prison Clinic and HIV Telemedicine
• National Meetings
• Required Conferences & Meetings

Contact:

Linda Watson
Program Coordinator
N1147 Doan Hall
410 W. 10th Avenue
Columbus, Ohio 43210
Phone: (614) 293-5667
Fax: (614) 293-4556
E-mail: watson.10@osu.edu