Premise 4: Training pediatric physician-scientists who can contribute substantive research in this field will require a rigorous laboratory-based training program.

Proposed Training


The overall goal of this training program is to train fellows in areas of basic research relevant to infections in the immunocompromised host. This fellowship is designed to be an intensive laboratory-based training program where fellows receive the training necessary to establish independent research careers in academic medical centers or federal institutions (NIH, FDA, CDC, etc.). To maintain our recently awarded accreditation as an ACGME-approved fellowship training program, fellows will also receive clinical training as mandated by the ACGME. Thus, the fellowship is designed as a mandatory 3-year training program with one year of clinical experience and two years of absolutely protected time dedicated to laboratory training.

Briefly, we are a tertiary care center for an 11-county area. We see about 40 consults per month on the inpatient service and in a large neonatal intensive care unit. The fellows also receive several phone consultations every day they are on service from pediatricians in our referral area. An extensive phone consultation system has become "standard operating procedure" for this community and thus, there is not a large need for "routine" outpatient infectious disease consults. We have an active HIV Clinic which follows approximately 40 HIV-infected children. There are approximately 25-30 infants born to HIV-infected women each year in our catchment area. Each fellow attends one half-day per week HIV Clinic to develop some experience with the longitudinal care of HIV-infected children. The HIV program is part of the Pediatric AIDS Clinical Trials Group funded by the NICHD. In addition to the usual tertiary care patients, the division also provides consultation for renal, liver, heart (after 2000), and bone marrow transplant services as well as to an active oncology program (about 50 new patients per year; 100 active patients). Thus, our fellows see a diversity of clinical problems and receive significant exposure to immunocompromised patients, which is the laboratory focus of this program.

For those fellows wishing additional exposure to infections in the immunocompromised patient, we are continuing our unique relationship with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (SJCRH) in Memphis, TN, which allows our fellows to spend one month on the consult service at that institution. SJCRH is one of the leading and largest children's cancer centers in the world. Because of their large patient population, the infectious diseases group is able to provide rich and intensive exposure to infections in the compromised host.