Fellows see an average of 400 consults/year in the inpatient setting, which include the following:
- immunocompetent hosts with a wide variety of organ system infections and
- immunocompromised hosts such as HIV-infected, hematology/ oncology and solid organ and bone marrow transplant patients.
The following elements make up the clinical and lab requirements of the Fellowship Program:
Consult Service
Each fellow spends approximately eight months in the first year and four to six months in the second year on the Consult service. Under the supervision of an attending physician, the Consult team is involved in the care of patients from a variety of specialty and subspecialty services. Consults offer the clinical experience to understand and manage common and uncommon infectious disease problems in medical, surgical and immunocompromised patient populations.
Basic Microbiology
A weekly conference devoted to reviewing gram stains of various body fluids associated with interesting cases of the week. This is a chance to combine clinical history with microbiologic inspection and laboratory diagnosis.
Molecular Diagnostics
A series of five, 1-2 hour lectures covering the basic areas of molecular diagnostics in the hospital's diagnostic area.
Prison Clinic & HIV Telemedicine
The Ohio State University Hospitals holds the contract with the State of Ohio for care of the prison population. Fellows participate in inpatient consults at the Corrections Medical Center as well as telemedicine clinics that originate from around Ohio. This experience offers an excellent opportunity in treating a large number of patients with acute and chronic infectious diseases in a resource limited setting.
Medical Student Education
Fellows act as preceptors for a variety of medical student courses, including Introduction to Clinical Medicine, Physician Development III, Clinical Analysis and Problem Solving, and Infectious Disease related small group tutorials. In addition, fellows make education a daily priority for medical students who rotate on the inpatient consult service.
Clinical Microbiology mini-course
Each fellow spends a one-month rotation observing the various workstations (general, blood, respiratory, urine, virology, mycology, and mycobacteriology) within the Microbiology Lab. This experience expands understanding of the process required in the identification of positive cultures and susceptibility testing.
Outpatient Clinic
Fellows are responsible for seeing their own outpatient HIV+ patients one day per week as well as new infectious disease referrals. Support staff includes a clinic nurse, social worker, triage nurse and dedicated pharmacist. Fellows rotate for six-month blocks with different faculty members to learn a wide range of practice styles but continue with their own patients throughout training.
Sexual Health Clinic
Each first year fellow spends one month at the Sexual Health Clinic, which is associated with the Columbus Health Department. This experience involves learning the examination techniques and tests involved in the diagnosis of the most common sexually transmitted diseases. Each patient interaction offers a distinctive opportunity for treatment intervention and patient education.
