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Infectious Diseases Fellowship
UCI and CHOC Children’s (CHOC) partner to offer a three-year fully ACGME-accredited pediatric infectious diseases fellowship training program. Our program aims to prepare fellows for independent practice, and, at the successful completion of this program, candidates will be able to sit for the American Board of Pediatrics certification exam in pediatric infectious diseases.
The three-year training program includes approximately 14 months of clinical training and 20 months of research experience.
First-year:
The first year will be primarily clinical and primarily based at CHOC. The inpatient ID service is divided into two teams: the inpatient ward service and the ICU/hematology-oncology service, with a separate ID attending on each team.
Fellows will rotate on eight four-week blocks during the first year on these teams. On average, the two teams follow a total of 15 to 30 patients daily. Patient ages range from premature infants to young adults. The case-mix comes from a varied spectrum of normal hosts, chronically ill patients, post-transplant patients, patients with malignancies, and patients with primary immunodeficiencies.
Three four-week blocks are devoted to research/scholarly activity in the first year to allow fellows to explore possible research topics and select a research mentor.
During the first year of training, fellows will experience one four-week rotation on the adult ID medicine team at UCI Medical Center, an invaluable experience exposing them to the differences, intricacies, and overlap of infectious diseases in the adult vs pediatric setting.
Second and third year:
During the second and third years, fellows will spend nine four-week blocks on research, with three four-week blocks on the inpatient services.
During their second year, fellows participate in a two-week rotation at the Orange County Health Care Agency to train in the epidemiology of infectious diseases (i.e. tuberculosis, sexually transmitted diseases, and other reportable diseases), obtain exposure to lab techniques and diagnostics tests available through the health department, and learn about outbreak investigation and mitigation.
Outpatient:
Throughout the three-year fellowship, fellows will rotate through various clinics.
The pediatric infectious diseases clinic will be attended one-half day a week when the fellow is not on inpatient service. Hospital follow-ups and new outpatient consults referred by community providers are held in this clinic.
Primary immunodeficiency clinic and HIV/KIDS clinics at CHOC will allow the fellow to learn about the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases in these unique populations of patients. Fellows participate in one-half day of each clinic on a monthly basis.
Call schedules:
Fellows will be scheduled to be on call, including weekends, for eight weeks each of the three years.
University of California, Irvine
UCI provides extensive, high-quality education and clinical training, with 560 full-time faculty members and more than 1,300 volunteer faculty members from 26 clinical departments. UCI sponsors a multitude of innovative and highly productive research programs. There are 61 ACGME-accredited training programs. In addition to its adult programs, UCI serves as the sponsor for residencies in Pediatrics, Child Neurology, Combined Pediatrics/Anesthesia, and Medical Genetics, as well as fellowships in Neonatal/Perinatal Medicine, Pediatric Pulmonology, Pediatric Critical Care, Pediatric Endocrinology, Pediatric Urology, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Children’s Hospital of Orange County
CHOC is an academic, community-based hospital that serves as the main site for training in the fellowship. It has 334 beds, including a 30-bed PICU, 12-bed cardiac ICU, 72-bed NICU, and separate oncology and neuroscience units. In 2016-2017, there were 12,891 hospital discharges with 89,791 ED visits and 4,252 transports to CHOC. CHOC’s ED is a Level II pediatric trauma center. CHOC also operates primary care and specialty clinics throughout the county. The hospital serves about 2 million patients over four counties.
The training and education of medical students, residents, and fellows has been a longstanding focus of CHOC. Each year, CHOC trains about 290 residents and fellows from 38 different training programs, along with 190 medical students.
Delma J. Nieves, MD – Program Director, Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, UCI School of Medicine. Publication and research interests include pertussis, leptospirosis, invasive fungal infections, invasive pneumococcal diseases, and infections of the neonate.
Felice Adler, MD – Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine. Director of Antimicrobial Stewardship at CHOC. Publications and research interests include management of MDR tuberculosis, management of LTBI, osteomyelitis, and staphylococcus aureus infections.
Antonio Arrieta, MD – Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine. He is Division Chief for Pediatric Infectious Diseases at CHOC. Publications and research interests include PK/PD studies, invasive fungal infections and antifungal therapy, invasive pneumococcal diseases, empyema in children, and infections of the neonate.
Negar Ashouri, MD – Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine. Publications and research interests include Kawasaki disease and congenital CMV disease. She is the group’s physician leader for antimicrobial stewardship.
Michele Cheung, MD, MPH – Volunteer Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine. Deputy Medical Director of Epidemiology and EMS specialist for Orange County Public Health Agency. Volunteer faculty, pediatric infectious diseases attending, CHOC Children’s Hospital. Publications and research interests include MRSA infections, invasive pneumococcal disease, and public health emergency preparedness.
Jasjit Singh, MD – Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine. Director, CHOC Infection Prevention and Epidemiology. Publications and research interests include vaccine-preventable diseases, vaccine efficacy, tuberculosis, drug-resistant organisms, and outbreak management.
Matthew Zahn, MD – Volunteer Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine. Medical Director, Division of Epidemiology and Assessment, Orange County Health Care Agency. Volunteer CHOC faculty, pediatric infectious diseases. Publications and research interests include measles epidemiology, meningococcal disease outbreak, drug-resistant organisms, and vaccines.
ID case discussions (weekly)
ID fellows core teaching conference (weekly)
Microbiology/pathology rounds (twice a month, once as a team, once just with fellow)
Journal Club (monthly)
Fellows core curriculum (monthly)
Infection prevention team meetings (monthly)
Antibiotic stewardship program meetings (quarterly)
Fellows will also participate in teaching pediatric residents and medical students through morning reports, noon conferences, Grand Rounds, and on the inpatient services.
Training in research and completion of a research project related to pediatric infections is an important component of the fellowship. Each pediatric infectious disease fellow must design and conduct a scholarly project in his or her subspecialty area with supervision provided by an assigned faculty mentor. Fellows will have 20 months of protected time for research that is divided among all three fellowship years but is more heavily weighted toward the second and third years of training as noted above. The project may be basic science or clinical in nature, depending on the fellow’s interests. Research mentors are available through both CHOC and UCI and opportunities for lab research are strengthened by the research excellence of the infectious diseases team from UCI. Fellows will have the opportunity to seek out research opportunities and mentors at both institutions.
The fellowship core curriculum will provide training in biostatistics, lab and clinical research methodology, study design, grant preparation, research ethics, and Institutional Review Boards, evidence-based medicine and quality improvement.
