Infectious Diseases Fellowship

Education and research | Fellowship training | Contact information
Application | Faculty | Current fellows

Education and Research

The division has 14 full-time faculty members at the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center and McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 12 physicians and two Ph.D.s. There also are five infectious disease fellows at various stages in their training. Five of the faculty members are supported by competitive federal or Veteran’s Administration grants that fund research into interventional strategies in the care of AIDS patients, the molecular basis of antibiotic resistance in staphylococci and the host response to intracellular pathogens. Industry-sponsored clinical trials assess the efficacy of new antiviral, antifungal and antibacterial compounds. The departments of Internal Medicine and Microbiology and Immunology co-administer a National Institutes of Health training grant that supports basic science research in the molecular pathogenesis of infectious diseases. Full-time faculty members are assisted in both clinical and research endeavors by active affiliate faculty in the departments of Pathology and Microbiology and Immunology, as well as the School of Pharmacy.

Infectious diseases fellows spend six months of the year on infectious diseases consult services at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and VCU Medical Center, see outpatients one or two half days per week and spend elective months in clinics seeing patients infected with tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases and in the Travel Clinic. An additional month is spent in the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory.

Graduates of the fellowship program are well qualified to pursue careers in clinical practice, academic medicine, public health or industry.

Fellowship training

The basic fellowship lasts two years and two new fellows enter the program each year. Additional years of training are available for combined medicine and pediatric infectious diseases; for advanced expertise in hospital epidemiology and public health; for conducting HIV clinical trials; and for performing bench research in the pathogenesis of infectious diseases.

Conferences and Education

There are two conferences in which fellows participate. There is a weekly clinical conference at VCU Medical Center where fellows present cases and review the literature. The infectious diseases conference at the McGuire VA Hospital is every other week (two times per month).

Core curriculum conference is held weekly, and research conference and journal club are held monthly.

Fellows may elect to pursue the Master of Public Health degree or non-degree coursework in epidemiology and biostatistics. All fellows receive free tuition for two graduate-level courses per semester.

The fellowship in infectious diseases at the VCU Medical Center was awarded continuing, full accreditation in 2005 by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education for a five-year period, the maximum approval possible.

Application

All applications must be submitted through the Electronic Residency Application Service ERAS. The program also participates in the National Residency Matching Program.

For more detailed information about our program, please visit VCU ID Fellowship’s FREIDA listing

Fellowship contact information

Program director

P.O. Box 980049
Richmond, Virginia 23298-0049
Phone: (804) 828-9711

Coordinator