Teaching is one of the priorities of the Division of Infectious Diseases. The goals of our educational activities in the Fellowship Program are to provide the fellows with the most updated information on core topics in Infectious Diseases, and to teach them to assess critically published literature. These educational opportunities also provide them an opportunity to hone their presentation and teaching skills.

Core Curriculum Series: Presented weekly by faculty members. The series provides didactic lectures on a variety of topics in ID, with the goal of preparing the fellows for their clinical activities and for their Infectious Diseases board exam. During the summer, the schedule is focused on the first-year fellows, with an intensive course on the most common infections encountered by an Infectious Diseases consultant, as well as basic topics on antimicrobials and microbiology.

ID Journal Club:  Presented by fellows, who are assigned to a faculty member for each session in order to serve as a mentor. The role of the faculty mentor is to guide the fellow with article selection. With help of their mentor, the fellow is expected to discuss their article critically, and to provide data interpretation and conclusions.

ID Grand Rounds:  Meets weekly. Presentations are varied and include case discussions accompanied by pertinent review of the literature, faculty research-in-progress, and state of the art presentations by invited guests. Each of the clinical services present cases on a rotating basis. National and international experts in different fields of ID are also invited to present at Grand Rounds and to spend the day with the fellows.

HIV Conference: Meets weekly. Topics discussed include core principles in HIV management and diagnosis and multidisciplinary discussions regarding psychological and reproductive health of HIV patients. Management of co-existing sexually transmitted infections is also discussed. Complicated clinical cases are discussed in ‘Genotype Conference,’ to help providers manage HIV patients with multiple resistance mutations and limited treatment options.

Transplant ID Core Meeting: Meets monthly. Recent advances in the field of infections in solid organ and stem cell transplantation are discussed.

Transplant ID Teleconference: Presentation of interesting cases encountered on solid organ and bone marrow transplant ID services in three major transplant centers: University of Pittsburgh Medical Center TID group, Cleveland Clinic and the University of Sao Paolo, Brazil.

Antimicrobial Resistance

Cornelius (Neil) J. Clancy, MD

Matthew Culyba, MD, PhD

Yohei Doi, MD, PhD

Lee H. Harrison, MD

Minh-Hong Nguyen, MD

Ryan K. Shields, PharmD, MS

Daria Van Tyne, PhD

 

Antibiotic Stewardship

Ricardo Arbulu, MD

Ryan Bariola, MD

Brooke Decker, MD

Rachel Marini, PharmD

Erin McCreary, PharmD

Minh-Hong Nguyen, MD

Alex Viehman, MD

 

HIV/AIDS

Ken S. Ho, MD, MPH

Bernard JC Macatangay, MD

Sarah McBeth, MD MPH

Deborah K. McMahon, MD

John W. Mellors, MD

Sharon A. Riddler, MD

Nicolas Sluis-Cremer, PhD

Peter J. Veldkamp, MD, MS

 

Infection Prevention and Control

Brooke K. Decker, MD

Elise M. Martin, MD, MS

Graham Michael Snyder, MD, MS

Mohamed H Yassin, MD, PhD

 

Novel Therapeutics

Tatiana Bogdanovich, MD, PhD, MSc

Daria Van Tyne, PhD

Dimiter Stanchev Dimitrov, PhD

 

Outpatient Antibiotic Therapy

Kathleen R Sheridan, DO

 

Surgical Infections

Karin E. Byers, MD, MS

Neel B Shah, MD

 

Transplant Infectious Diseases

Neil Clancy, MD

Ghady Haidar, MD

Minh-Hong Nguyen, MD

Fernanda Silveira, MD, MS

Nina Singh, MD

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) is the leading health care system in western Pennsylvania, and is the clinical hub of one of the nation’s most renowned academic medical programs. Together with the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, UPMC hospitals train more than 1,300 residents and fellows each year in 82 specialty areas. For more general information about UPMC, click on UPMC Fast Facts.

UPMC Presbyterian and UPMC Montefiore Hospitals 

• Two major hospitals located next to each other in a complex connected by an indoor pedestrian bridge
• Together have 625 medical/surgical and 150 intensive care unit (ICU) beds
• Have more than 32,000 inpatient admissions annually
• Are home to the world-renowned Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute
• Are designated a Level 1 Regional Resource Trauma Center
• Fellows will be involved in General, Surgical and Transplant Infectious Disease Services here

 

 Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh Healthcare System (VAPHS) 

• Has 108 medical/surgical beds
• Is only a 5 to 10-minute walk from UPMC Presbyterian and UPMC Montefiore
• Is a large referral center for VA facilities throughout the region
• Offers downloadable videos of Medical Grand Rounds each week from UPMC Presbyterian and UPMC Montefiore
• Fellow will be involved with the VA General ID service

 

UPMC Shadyside Hospital 

• Has 485 medical/surgical beds
• 10-minute drive from UPMC Presbyterian and UPMC Montefiore
• Is located near the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) and the Hillman Cancer Center, which feature nationally recognized, cutting-edge cancer treatment and research
• Offers opportunities to treat infections among patients who have bone marrow transplantation

 

 Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC

• Is recognized as a National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health
• Houses faculty who specialize in gender-specific care and are affiliated with UPMC’s divisions of cardiology, gastroenterology, rheumatology, and oncology
• Is involved in more than 8,000 births per year, accounting for 45% of the births in Allegheny County
• Is a regional referral center for high-risk maternal care
• Is the largest neonatal ICU in Pennsylvania, treating more than 1,000 seriously or critically ill newborns annually
• In addition to Gyn/Neonatal care, an Orthopedic practice is present here, providing the fellow additional opportunities in management of bone and joint infections as well as Gyn related infections

 

 Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC 

• Has more than 400,000 visits to its hospital and neighborhood locations each year
• Was rated the ninth best pediatric hospital in the country by Child Magazinein 2005
• Was ranked seventh in funding from the National Institutes of Health in 2005
• Elective rotations are present for fellows in managing infectious issues in children

There are several opportunities for ID fellows to obtain clinical and/or research experiences in Tropical Medicine and HIV-AIDS care in resource-limited countries.

Established sites are the following:

1. Beira, Mozambique. In collaboration with the Catholic University of Mozambique (UCM), our HIV/AIDS Program has just completed the construction of a training center. Peter Millard, MD, MPH, is the clinical director of this training center located on the grounds of the UCM campus. Its mission is to provide integrated health care (including HIV, TB and malaria) and “hands on training” for health care workers in Mozambique and medical students of UCM. The clinic opened its doors in 2008.
2. Manila, the Philippines. The Philippine General Hospital (PGH) of the University of the Philippines is a very large hospital with excellent training opportunities in tropical diseases. The PGH Infectious Diseases staff is closely linked to the Philippine National Institutes of Health with interests in HIV and schistosomiasis (Dr. Edsel Salvana), and Neglected Tropical Diseases (Vicente Belizario, MD, MTMH).

Other possible opportunities exist in Kijabe Hospital in Kenya.