Infectious Diseases Fellowship Curriculum

Our training program integrates with Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center, Ben Taub Hospital, Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

The infectious diseases training program at Baylor comes in two forms: the traditional Infectious Diseases training program and the Immunocompromised Infectious Diseases training program (administered jointly with MD Anderson Cancer Center).

Additionally, in some years, combined adult-pediatric infectious diseases fellows also are a part of our program. All fellows start training in July of their first year with month-long didactic courses in Microbiology and Infection Prevention, Antimicrobial Stewardship and Quality Improvement. Over the course of a two-year fellowship, fellows will complete a minimum of 12 inpatient clinical rotations. During the second year of training, fellows can choose to pursue either a clinician-investigator pathway or a clinician-educator pathway. In the clinician-educator pathway, fellows complete an additional three inpatient clinical rotations in place of research time.

Fellows are eligible for Infectious Diseases Boards after two years of training, but many choose to pursue the optional third year of research and to obtain an advanced degree, such as a Master in Public Health or Master of Science in Clinical Investigation.

Fellows in the Immunocompromised Infectious Diseases training program receive the same training as fellows in Baylor's traditional Infectious Diseases training program with one main difference: The primary training site for clinical rotations for fellows in the Immunocompromised Infectious Diseases training program is MD Anderson Cancer Center. Fellows do about 60% of their inpatient clinical rotations among the Leukemia, Lymphoma, Stem-Cell Transplant, and Solid-Tumor services there. The remaining inpatient clinical rotations are split among Ben Taub Hospital, Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center, and the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center.

Clinical rotations at each hospital provide experience with the underserved population (Ben Taub Hospital), pre- and post-solid-organ-transplant patients (Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center), patients with cancer and pre- and post-stem-cell-transplant patients (MD Anderson Cancer Center), and veteran patients (Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center). Each rotation familiarizes the fellow with different approaches to the care of infectious disease patients at our various clinical pavilions.

The HIV outpatient continuity care experience takes place during all years of fellowship at the VA HIV Clinic and at Harris Health System's Thomas Street at Quentin Mease Clinic. Non-HIV outpatient training occurs during the second year of fellowship. Available opportunities include: Harris Health System (General ID Clinic, Tropical Medicine Clinic, Osteomyelitis and Wound Care Clinic), MD Anderson Cancer Center (Immunocompromised ID Clinic, Hepatitis C Clinic) and Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center (Hepatitis C Clinic, Wound Care Clinic, General ID Clinic).

Throughout their entire fellowship, trainees attend the following weekly educational conferences:

• City-Wide Infectious Disease Case Conference - a teaching conference whose purpose is to discuss challenging ID cases and which is attended by adult and pediatric infectious disease trainees and physicians representing multiple academic institutions and hospitals from all over the city of Houston.
• Infectious Diseases Section Journal Club - an educational conference at which prominent articles from the recent ID literature are presented and discussed.
• Core Curriculum - a longitudinal educational Board review curriculum administered jointly by Baylor College of Medicine, The University of Texas McGovern Medical School and MD Anderson Cancer Center.
• Hospital-specific case conferences - educational conferences at which interesting and challenging cases are presented and discussed by section faculty at a particular hospital.
• BCM-Houston AIDS Education & Training Center (AETC) Lunch N Learn Conference - a weekly educational conference on HIV management

During the first month of fellowship, all fellows complete introductory courses in Microbiology and Infection Prevention, Antimicrobial Stewardship and Quality Improvement.

During the first year, fellows will complete the IDSA’s Primer on Healthcare Epidemiology, Infection Control & Antimicrobial Stewardship: Online ID Fellows Course as well as SHEA Primer on Healthcare Epidemiology, Infection Control & Antimicrobial Stewardship online courses.

During the second year, fellows attend the Quality Academy (QA) hosted by the Quality Improvement and Innovations Vice Chair Group.

Additional opportunities for didactic training are available through the Clinical Scientist Training Program (CSTP) at Baylor and through the Masters of Public Health program at The University of Texas School of Public Health. The CSTP focuses on training physicians to perform translational research and allows fellows to earn a Certificate of Added Qualification or a Master's in Clinical Investigation.

In addition, fellows can choose to pursue research through the Houston VA Health Services Research and Development Center of Excellence and attend didactic lectures on health services research methodology and career development.

Fellows can take an intensive travel and tropical medicine course through the National School of Tropical Medicine. This course is one of the requirements to become eligible for the Certificate of Knowledge in Clinical Tropical Medicine and Travelers' Health from the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

All fellows will have a designated research mentor and will work on a specific research topic during their fellowship training. All senior fellows present their research work during our Annual Infectious Diseases Research Retreat. Those fellows who pursue the clinician-investigator pathway also will attend a research advisory committee. Fellows in the clinician-investigator pathway may participate in a third-year (and possibly fourth-year) Advanced Research ID Fellowship Program. Here is a list of some of the research projects that our fellows have previously worked on

• Molecular mechanisms of daptomycin resistance in enterococci (basic science)
• Diagnostic testing in invasive aspergillosis and mucormycosis in cancer patients (translational)
• Microbiome characteristics of cancer patients infected with C. difficile (translational)
• Clinical utility of next-generation sequencing in infectious disease diagnostic testing (translational)
• Antibiotic stewardship for asymptomatic bacteriuria (health services research)
• Clinical and safety outcomes related to standardization of outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy documentation (quality improvement)
• Assessing prevalence of Strongyloides infection in pre-solid-organ-transplant veterans (clinical)
• Clinical impact of Karius testing in solid organ transplant recipients (clinical)
• Missed opportunities for penicillin allergy de-labeling in Infectious Disease clinics (quality improvement)
• Clinically significant CMV infection in patients with lymphoma and no prior cellular therapy (clinical)
• Clinical utility of follow-up blood cultures among adult cancer patients with Gram-negative bacilli bacteremia (clinical)
• Troponin I levels and cardiovascular complications in patients with respiratory viral infection (clinical)

Fellows also have the opportunity to present at several local, regional, and national conferences, including IDWeek, the Texas Infectious Diseases Society Annual Meeting, the Baylor College of Medicine Department of Medicine Annual Housestaff Research Retreat, and many other conferences.

Find a list of all potential research mentors.

During their senior year(s) of fellowship, fellows can choose to participate in one of our optional specialty-area tracks.

• Infection Prevention, Antimicrobial Stewardship, Quality Improvement, Leadership Track
• Tropical Medicine & Global Health Track
• Systems-Based Practices in Infectious Diseases Track

During their second year, fellows in the Clinician Educator Pathway will receive focused training in medical education, including didactic sessions on medical education topics, direct teaching with feedback, and opportunities for medical education research and leadership. Fellows in this pathway have the optional opportunity to earn an additional honor as a Distinguished Fellow Educator through the Department of Medicine’s Academy of Fellow Educators.