Fellowship Curriculum
Education Program-Basic Curriculum
The Infectious Diseases Fellowship Training Program is a 2-year program with the option to add a research-focused 3rd year for those desiring a career in infectious disease research or fellows wishing to pursue specialty training in Transplant Infectious Disease.
Our clinical training includes rotations in General Infectious Disease on the consult services at the University of Colorado Hospital, Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center, and Denver Health Hospital Authority.
Fellows additionally rotate on specialty rotations in:
- Orthopedic Infectious Disease (UCH) 8 weeks
- Oncology Infectious Disease (UCH) 4 weeks
- Transplant Infectious Disease (UCH) 8 weeks
- Non-tuberculosis mycobacterial disease (NJ) 4 weeks
- Public Health including TB, STI, viral hepatitis (DH) 1 week
- Infection Prevention (4 weeks)
- Antimicrobial Stewardship (4 weeks)
Additional electives are available through the CDC Division of Vector Borne Diseases and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Fellows can additionally pursue electives with other partner surgical and medical specialty services based on the career goals. The specific allocation of specialty and elective rotations may vary based on the fellow’s career goals and training needs.
Outpatient Infectious Disease Practice
All fellows have an assigned continuity clinic at one of the 3 core sites: University of Colorado Hospital, Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center, and Denver Health. The clinic practice includes a core of training and experience in HIV primary care, infectious disease consultation, travel medicine, STI testing and treatment, PrEP and continuity follow-up for patients seen inpatient.
Fellows desiring certification in performance of anoscopy can pursue this as an elective experience at the UCH site in the 2nd year.
Clinical Tracks
For fellows with focused career interests in infectious disease subspecialty areas, we have established focused tracks to support development of additional competency in these areas. This includes:- Orthopedic ID: within the 2-year training program
- Antimicrobial Stewardship and Infection Prevention: within the 2-year training program
- Transplant ID: incorporates 3rd year focused on transplant ID
Educational Conferences and Didactics
The ID division has weekly conferences that include alternating ID Grand Rounds and Case Conferences presented by the fellows.
We have a 2-year cycle of didactic lectures that occur once a month covering the breadth of clinical topics needed for clinical practice and for preparedness for the ID boards. All second-year fellows present one Didactic Conference as part of this lecture series on a topic of their choice.
In addition, each fellow presents one Journal Club per year paired with a faculty mentor. Journal clubs are held once per month in the evening at the house of one of the faculty and give the opportunity for fellows to connect with the other fellows and faculty from across the sites in an informal setting.
Infectious disease consultants play an important role in Quality Improvement activities across health systems. To support our fellows developing the skills needed to be part of high performing teams, all fellows receive training in Quality Improvement through the CU Quality and Safety Academy. First year fellows also facilitate one Collaborative Case Review as part of their training and participate in Quality Improvement activities in the Division.
Research Training
Our program provides the framework to support fellows, regardless of their background in research in developing the skills needed to understand and critically appraise the medical literature and to envision, design and conduct scholarly projects aligned with their career goals.
Key components of this training include:
- Mentored review of medical literature as part of the journal club series
- Optional completion of a certificate program in Epidemiology and Biostatistics during the 2nd year of fellowship
- Mentored development and completion of a scholarly project over the 2 years of fellowship
- Support of project development through ongoing meeting and reviews by the program leadership and the core faculty lead for research
- Faculty feedback on scholarly work as part of the Works in Progress as part of the didactic curriculum
The Infectious Disease division has established research programs and expertise in the areas of:
- HIV treatment and care
- HIV drug design and discovery
- HIV aging
- HIV clinical trials
- STI treatment and prevention
- Tuberculosis
- Non-tuberculous mycobacterial disease
- Neuroinfectious diseases
- Flaviviruses
- Syndemics HIV, hepatitis C, opioid dependence
- Stewardship and hospital epidemiology
- Orthopedic infectious disease
- Transplant infectious disease
- Medical education
- Medical microbiology
Education Training
Education is a core component of infectious disease practice, whether we are educating trainees, colleagues through clinical programs like infection prevention and stewardship, the community through outreach and prevention programs, or our patients. Supporting our fellows in developing their skills as educators is a critical part of our training program.On clinical services, fellows are regularly paired with residents and medical students and serve as leaders on the clinical team with mentorship and support from the teaching attending. This includes guiding trainees in clinical care and developing over the course of training brief educational talks they can give. Fellows are regularly invited to participate as discussants in medicine resident case conferences for cases with an infectious disease focus. Fellows also serve as part of the undergraduate microbiology curriculum facilitating small group discussions with the medical students. The CU School of Medicine has an active AIDS Education and Training Center which conducts training and outreach sessions. Fellows are encouraged to sign up for these sessions as opportunities arise.
Program faculty provide active mentorship in all these teaching activities and the composite of all their work becomes a part of their teaching portfolio from fellowship.
The Academy of Medical Educators on the Anschutz Medical Campus conducts regular conferences on educational methods and provides a diversity of online trainings to support core skill development for educators. A training track for clinician educators is being established through the Department of Medicine.