More detail: Geriatric Program

Infectious Disease Fellowship


Maine Medical Center offers an ideal environment in which to train infectious disease fellows. The hospital provides primary care services to the Greater Portland community and is a referral center for the entire state of Maine and adjacent parts of New Hampshire. The daily census for patients admitted to the medical services is more than 240. This stimulates 500-800 infectious disease consultants per year which are available for fellow training, encompassing a wide array of infections that include the complications of bone marrow and renal transplantation, HIV, and diseases of international refugees.

Curriculum

The training program curriculum meets all the requirements of the subspecialty board in infectious diseases of the American Board of Internal Medicine and includes in-depth clinical and laboratory experiences during two years of training. Fellows also participate in research activities concurrent with clinical involvement and are provided block time for their own projects.

Fellows are actively involved in the teaching of medical residents and medical students on the inpatient and consult services, and they provide continuing education programs for nursing and technical staff.

First Year

The first year of training is largely clinical. The fellow has primary responsibility for the infectious diseases consult service and sees inpatient consultations in conjunction with the service attending. The fellow also supervises a second-year medical resident and fourth-year medical student who are taking an infectious diseases rotation. There is a daily attending conference which serves as the primary formal teaching forum for day-to-day diagnosis and management to inpatients, a weekly case conference attended by infectious diseases specialists from throughout southern Maine, a weekly fellows didactic conference, and a monthly journal club. Basic science and research lectures are a regular part of the curricululm.

A major portion of training in infectious diseases occurs in the outpatient setting. First-year fellows participate in weekly infectious diseases and AIDS consultation clinics and less frequently in hepatitis, tuberculosis, and international health clinics. In the infectious disease outpatient clinic, the fellows see referrals from physicians throughout Maine. In the past year this included the outpatient management of common problems such as osteomyelitis as well as unusual diseases such as leishmamasis, leprosy, and schistosomiasis.