Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fellowship

Leadership

Faculty

Clinical Experience

At Harbor-UCLA we have a broad-based clinical rotational experience. We firmly believe that exposure to a variety of venues, approaches, and attendings is an important learning concept. That is, the more exposure to experienced critical thinking from those with differing backgrounds, served populations, and day-to-day clinical work, the better. So, in addition to Harbor-based and outside clinical work detailed below, our conference schedule is enhanced with pediatric “Intracity Rounds”, an event with didactics and case-based learning,  over dinner, with other pediatric infectious disease programs in Los Angeles. Occurring quarterly, interesting cases are presented, providing a special learning opportunity with many other different Faculty and trainees. Our Fellows also participate in a similar intracity conference that considers adult infectious disease cases.

We also prioritize and actively engage in many teaching opportunities for other staff at Harbor-UCLA. Our Division is proud to have received the Harbor-UCLA Department of Pediatrics Outstanding Faculty and/or Fellow Teaching Award in 1997, 2005, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2018.

Inpatient Experience

Over the 3-year Fellowship, Fellows have clinical experiences for 12 months, as required by the American Board of Pediatrics. Inpatient rotations at Harbor-UCLA are supplemented with experience at other locations. These include Miller Children’s Hospital in Long Beach and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (for more exposure to transplant-related infectious diseases).

Outpatient and Public Health Experience

Fellows attends regular general ID and HIV clinics at Harbor-UCLA. In addition, outpatient clinic rotations at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (immunology) and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (STD, Tuberculosis, Leprosy) provide further depth and learning in a variety of populations.

Infection Prevention and Control

Dr. Zangwill is the Hospital Epidemiologist and Director of Infection Prevention and Control at Harbor-UCLA. As such, the Fellows have ongoing real-world learning and active involvement with the principles of IPC, disease surveillance, outbreak investigation, and policy development. This is supplemented by participation in IPC committee meetings, and an opportunity to attend various working Task Forces related to prevention of catheter-associated UTI, central line-associated blood stream infection, and hand hygiene.

Antibmicrobial Stewardship

Dr. Adler-Shohet is Director of the Pediatric Antimicrobial Stewardship Program. Fellows play an active role in stewardship rounds throughout the hospital and work also with stewardship pharmacists, a major quality improvement activity.

Clinical Microbiology

Fellows rotate through the Harbor-UCLA Clinical Microbiology laboratory for routine and specialized education. As well, we have a rotation through the Orange County (California) Department of Public Health laboratory for exposure to processes related to more obscure pathogens and agents of bioterrorism.

Research Opportunities

We believe that the Fellow must be actively engaged in all aspects of a given research endeavor – with close Faculty guidance – including project conception, administrative tasks, (e.g., IRB submission), project implementation and completion, collaboration with other institutions as necessary, presentations, and manuscript preparation and submission. We believe this is necessary to fully appreciate and critically utilize the scientific literature that supports our specialty’s practices. As such, we work to craft a research experience that reflects the individual Fellow’s interests as much as possible. You will not simply be thrown into someone’s pet project as a worker bee.

Our divisional research encompasses a variety of areas often in collaboration with other institutions. In the past, we had longstanding funding through NIH, CDC, and industry. The division has received funding and/or collaborate with AHRQ, CDC, NIH CTSI, and DoD. Recently, our research areas include a large statewide antimicrobial stewardship intervention program in NICUs with clinical, sociocultural, epidemiologic, and cost-effectiveness components, clinical epidemiology (eg, non-tuberculous mycobacterial infections in adults, resistant Enterobacterales UTI among underserved children), clinical/cost-effectiveness evaluations (e.g. genome sequencing in tuberculosis care, MIC determination methods, dental prophylaxis, post-operative care, management of newborns exposed to chorioamnionitis), antimicrobial stewardship in various clinical areas, domains, and populations, and infection prevention intervention evaluations.

We are also fortunate to have a seamless and integrated relationship with The Lundquist Institute, one of the largest biomedical research institutes in the country. As well, our group has research-related educational resources available through the NIH-funded Clinical and Translational Science Institute at Lundquist. These relationships provide a tremendous trove of educational and training opportunities to our Fellows. For example, we have had Fellows in the CTSI Master of Science in Clinical Research program during Fellowship.

Conferences & Seminars

Fellows