Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program

The fellowship offers a balanced curriculum to provide hands on experience with a variety of diseases while also allowing time for academic development. The program leadership prioritizes fellow well-being and professional development.

Curriculum

The fellowship schedule is divided into blocks (1 block = 2 weeks) to allow enough time for a robust clinical experience and continuity with the supervising faculty. The fellows experience the full spectrum of patients on the inpatient consultation services including transplant ID for the solid organ transplant recipients. At WMC, they will also rotate through the Microbiology Laboratory and experience the work in the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program and the Department of Infection Prevention and Control. The fellows will also have the opportunity to learn about Tropical and Travel Health with Dr. Christina Coyle at Jacobi Medical Center. Each week, fellows will participate in continuity clinic, conferences including ID Grand Rounds, and didactics. Each fellow is allotted four weeks of vacation and two to four personal days during each year of training.

Inpatient Consult Schedule (see sample of rotation schedule below for details)

Sample Schedule

On Call Schedule

Our fellows are on call from home during weeknights. The weekend call will be divided equally among the four fellows. Fellows will be rounding during the day on-site with a faculty attending at Westchester Medical Center and by phone covering Metropolitan Hospital. At all times, faculty members are available for phone or in-person support.

Conference Schedule

Tuesday Mornings: Continuity clinic at each site (Fellows will be at one clinic for the duration of their fellowship)

Tuesday Afternoons: Core Curriculum Didactics and Journal Club and board review sessions.

Thursday Noon: ID Grand Rounds (1st Wednesday of the month at MHC, rest of the month THursdays at WMC) in addition to case management rounds and updates from our antimicrobial stewardship and infection control teams

Additional Conferences and Learning Opportunities

Internal Conferences

The faculty and fellows alike participate in many conferences and committees

WMC Infection Prevention and Control Committee

WMC Antimicrobial Stewardship Program

Infectious Diseases Society of New York Intercity Rounds

Microbiology Rounds

Marina Keller, MD along with Vishnu Chaturvedi, MD, our Chief of Microbiology, Virology & Molecular Biology at WMC, have provide the fellows the opportunity to have multiple stops in the microbiology labs during the week to review gram stains and interesting bacterial and fungal cultures, in addition to reviewing blood parasite smears and buffy coat smears. Fellows also will have monthly dedicated lectures with Dr. Chaturvedi, who also lends his expertise in fungal pathogens including Candida auris.

External conferences

The fellows will be expected to participate and attend IDWeek, one of the major Infectious Disease meetings of the year. Fellows have also taken the opportunity to attend other conferences, including:

ID Society of NY (IDSNY)

Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infection (CROI)

American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) Annual Meeting

Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) Spring Meeting

Educational materials

Fellows will be provided with the SHEA course at the beginning of the fellowship. Also fellows will have access to the George Washington ID board review courses lectures and questions and will be enrolled in the National HIV curriculum to be completed during the fellowship.

Electives

The ID fellows are encouraged to expand their clinical acumen beyond core curriculum. Recent fellows have participated in the following electives

• Tropical Medicine rotation at Jacobi Medical Center with Christina Coyle, MD
• Antimicrobial Stewardship and Infection Prevention and Control
• WMC Wound Care Service
• Additional transplant and Infection control rotations
• Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital Inpatient Pediatric ID consultation service
• WMC Critical Care
• TB Mini-Fellowship at the Global Tuberculosis Institute of New Jersey Medical School

Can comprise any of the following: Tropical and Travel Medicine with the internationally renowned Christina Coyle, MD, at Jacobi Hospital Tropical Medicine Clinic, Solid organ transplant, Infection prevention and control, Antimicrobial stewardship, Critical care elective, Wound care, Pediatrics, HIV.

The outpatient continuity practice is a key component of the education of our Infectious Diseases fellows. Fellows spend one half-day per week caring for a panel of outpatients that they will follow throughout their fellowship training. The fellows see patients under the supervision of an attending. One-on-one mentoring in a superb environment allows our fellows to develop the skills they need to practice outstanding patient-centered outpatient Infectious Diseases and HIV medicine.

Our fellows are on call from home during weeknights. The weekend call will be divided equally among the four fellows. Fellows will be rounding during the day on-site with a faculty attending at Westchester Medical Center and by phone covering Metropolitan Hospital. At all times, faculty members are available for phone or in-person support.

Research

Lyme Disease and other Tick-borne Illnesses The Division of Infectious Diseases is and has been involved in research on Lyme Disease.  Some of the faculty members have actively participated in the development of major treatment guidelines. Fellows will have the opportunity to participate in the summer Tick-borne clinics when rotating at WMC. The clinics will focus on prevention, treatment, diagnosis, of lyme disease and other co-infections. This will be an opportunity for fellows to conduct research in collaboration with the immunology and microbiology departments at New York Medical College. The Division is also involved in research of other tick-borne infections such as human granulocytic anaplasmosis and babesiosis, as well as Powassan virus encephalitis.

HIV/AIDS
The faculty published some of the first descriptions of AIDS during the early years of the epidemic and have been authors of chapters in several textbooks. The Ally care center currently is involved in pharmaceutically funded clinical trials for novel antiretroviral therapies.

Infection Prevention and Control
The Division in conjunction with the WMC Department of Infection Prevention and Control has been involved in many projects in the prevention of hospital acquired infections and published on antibiotic resistant bacteria, COVID-19, Mpox, and infections in transplant recipients.

Solid organ transplantation
Our ID transplant faculty are active in clinical research and have been authors of several publications. Fellows have a good opportunity to participate in research in transplant during the fellowship with the close mentorship from our faculty.

Research Opportunities (see below a list of recent publications by our faculty and fellows)

The ID fellows are expected to formulate and complete at least one research project during the two-year fellowship, supervised by a faculty member of their choice. Formal submission and presentation of the fellow’s work in a format suitable for publication is required. Travel is supported for fellows to present their work at regional and national meetings. Gary Wormser, MD, Marc El Khoury, MD, Akira Shishido, MD, and Marina Keller, MD serve as senior research mentors for our ID fellows. Dr. Wormser has been prolific in his career as an NIH funded physician scientist, with over 500 publications including the IDSA guidelines on Lyme, editing multiple medical text books. Our fellows have had tremendous success in the research arena, with presentations at all major national venues. Almost every fellow in the past 20 years has authored at least one publication during or following their training.

Quality Improvement Projects

Under the mentorship of Jaishvi Eapen, MD, all fellows are required to participate in a quality improvement project during their fellowship, which often leads to a dedicated research project and a publication. Projects will be presented during one of the ID grand rounds.

Critical fellowship being planned.

Tuesdays
– Core curriculum lecture or  3 p.m. – 4 p.m.
– Board review Sessions or 4 p.m. – 5 p.m.
– Journal Club  4 p.m. – 5 p.m.

Wednesdays
ID Grand Round  9 a.m. – 10 a.m.
Case management rounds  10 am. – 10:30 a.m.

Inter-City Rounds every 3-4 months

With the help of Dr. Keller Marina our fantastic clinician and microbiology expert, fellows have the opportunity to have multiple stops in the microbiology labs during the week to review gram stains and interesting bacterial and fungal cultures, in addition to reviewing blood parasite smears and buffy coat smears. Fellows also will have monthly dedicated lectures with Dr. Chaturvedi Vishnu our microbiology lab director, who is a national expert in fungal diseases.

Under the mentorship of Dr. Gary Wormser, our world renowned tick-borne diseases expert and researcher, during the summer, the fellows have the opportunity to see patients in the Lyme Diagnostic Center and become experts in diagnosing and treating patients with Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, babesiosis or any other tick-borne disease and learn from the best in the field. In addition they will have a chance to learn to identify different ticks with the help of an entomologist when available on-site. Fellows will also have the opportunity to participate in research in this field.

Each fellow is allotted four weeks of vacation and four personal days during each year of training.