Curriculum

The required two-year training program is designed to offer the fellow comprehensive clinical training experiences and flexible research opportunities.

The first year of fellowship is a clinical year divided into thirteen 4 week blocks.  During this year, the fellow will spend:

  • Three blocks on the Mount Sinai General ID-HIV consultation service
  • Three blocks on the Elmhurst ID consultation service
  • Four blocks on the Mount Sinai Transplant ID consultation service divided into:
    • Two blocks on Solid Organ Transplant ID consultation service
    • Two blocks on Bone Marrow Transplant/Oncology ID consultation service
  • Two blocks on the Mount Sinai Inpatient HIV medicine service
  • One block of Clinical Microbiology Laboratory training

The second year of fellowship is primarily a research year.  Fellows interested in additional training in transplant infectious diseases have the option to complete our new Transplant Infectious Disease (TID) Track during their second year. The curriculum for this track is described separately below. All second year fellows will have the following clinical responsibilities: 

  • One two week rotation on General ID-HIV consultation or Elmhurst ID consultation service
  • One block on the Mount Sinai Inpatient HIV medicine (not applicable to the TID track)
  • Outpatient Infectious Disease Clinic at Elmhurst Hospital (half day clinic on Mondays through which second year fellows rotate; one half day per month on average)
  • One week of outpatient clinic sessions focusing on Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) and pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP/PEP) for HIV at Elmhurst Hospital

Each fellow has a weekly continuity clinic at either Mount Sinai or Elmhurst Hospital for the entirety of the two-year fellowship.

Fellows learn infection prevention/hospital epidemiology and antimicrobial stewardship throughout their fellowship and will do a total of four weeks with our Antimicrobial Stewardship Program and Infection Prevention/Hospital Epidemiology teams during their second years.  

All fellows will be given guidance and opportunity to pursue scholarly projects during their training.  During their first year of fellowship, fellows are assigned a faculty advisor to help with career development and to discuss the fellow’s clinical and research interests.  Fellows will also attend quarterly research meetings as a part of their core lecture series; these meetings have been designed to help first fellows identify an area of interest, formulate a research question, and develop a study design and to allow second year fellows to present their research and receive feedback.  Research lunches are scheduled in the second half of the academic year to introduce fellows to faculty projects and to inform them of potential scholarly opportunities.  Fellows are given protected time during their second year to pursue their scholarly projects according to their areas of interests.  

Potential areas for scholarly activity for fellows at Mount Sinai include but are not limited to:

  • Antimicrobial stewardship and antibiotic resistance 
  • Clinical and translational research including behavioral, epidemiology, genomics and interventional trials  
  • HIV laboratory research including pathogenesis, therapeutics and vaccine development
  • Host pathogen interactions
  • Infection control & prevention and hospital epidemiology 
  • Molecular diagnostics and epidemiology
  • Transplant infectious disease
  • Virology including coronavirus (SARS CoV2), CMV, flaviviruses, influenza, hepatitis

Fellows will also gain experience in quality improvement projects during their fellowship and will be able to pursue activities in medical education with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, both in the classroom and in the clinical settings.

Fellows have the option of a third year of fellowship which would be fully dedicated to research if this is in line with their career path.

The Transplant Infectious Disease (TID) Track is an optional training path for fellows interested in a career in transplant infectious diseases.

Ambulatory: During their second year, TID fellows will attend one half day session per week at the transplant ID clinic except when the fellow is on an inpatient consults service. 
Inpatient: Fellows on the TID track will spend a minimum of two 4 week blocks on Solid Organ Transplant ID and two 4 week blocks on BMT/Oncology ID consult service during their second year of fellowship training. This will give TID track fellows a total of 4 months of Organ Transplant ID and 4 months of BMT/Oncology ID consult services during their two years of fellowship.
Call schedule: Fellows selected for the TID track will not be required to do any additional weekday or weekend call aside from the call days assigned to them as part of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Infectious Disease Fellowship.

Research/Scholarly Responsibilities:

  • The TID track fellow will be required to participate in scholarly projects related to transplant infectious diseases under guidance of a dedicated mentor from among the transplant ID faculty.
  • Time allotted for scholarly work will be flexible, depending on the time required for completion of ACGME core rotations/activities; and time spent on the transplant ID clinical services.  
  • The ID fellows will be expected to present their scholarly work at the end of their second year of fellowship and will be encouraged to submit an abstract to a relevant national or international meeting and prepare a manuscript for publication in a peer reviewed medical journal. 
  • Fellows on the TID track will participate in other TID educational opportunities, including attending weekly TID meetings and monthly TID research meetings.

Supervision:  
This track has been developed by Dr. Sarah Taimur, Director of the Transplant ID Fellowship Track, and Dr. Meenakshi Rana, Director of Transplant ID, under the guidance of Dr. Mikyung Lee, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Infectious Disease Fellowship Program Director.  Fellows on this track mentored by Dr. Taimur and Dr. Rana and will be directly supervised by our Transplant ID faculty when on the TID services.

Take a look at our training schedule.

There are a number of formal conferences and didactic sessions throughout the two-year fellowship.

  • Fellows Case Conference (weekly on Tuesdays at 5pm). This is an integrated conference during which our adult and pediatric infectious disease fellows throughout the Mount Sinai Health System present interesting cases from the consult services, the HIV service, or ambulatory settings. The case presentations are complemented by a review of the relevant medical literature. Our monthly divisional Quality Improvement (QI) conference is incorporated into the weekly case conference schedule.
  • Ambulatory HIV curriculum (weekly on Tuesdays at 7:30am) The second year fellows lead these didactic sessions with supervision by the Program Director.  This curriculum covers the principles of and evidence behind HIV infection, antiretroviral therapy, HIV guidelines, infectious and medical complications of HIV infection and treatment, and co-morbidities seen in HIV infected individuals. 
  • Microbiology Plate Rounds (weekly, Wednesday at 9am)  Fellows attend weekly rounds where they review the microbiology and pathology specimens of clinical cases.  These sessions are supervised and taught by Drs. Melissa Gitman, Michael Nowak and Alberto Paniz-mondolfi.
  • Core Curriculum Lecture Series (biweekly to weekly, Fridays at 8am) This formal lecture series taught by Sinai faculty covers the topics required by the ACGME and spans the two-year fellowship. This series also includes quarterly research meetings led by Dr. Nicole Bouvier and Dr. Michelle Cespedes.
  • Journal Club (monthly on Wednesdays at 5pm) Journal club is an integrated conference with all the infectious disease fellows in the Mount Sinai Health System.  This journal club is supervised by the Program Directors at each of the campuses and appropriate faculty based on the topic of the articles.  Both recent and “landmark” articles will be reviewed and key concepts in the critical review of the literature will be taught.
  • Research Lunches (biweekly starting in the third quarter, Fridays at noon) These lunches between faculty researchers and the ID fellows allow the fellows an opportunity to learn about the basic science, translational and clinical research that is taking place within the Mount Sinai Infectious Disease Division and the Microbiology Department.  These lunches also allow fellows to identify potential research projects and mentors.
  • Divisional Grand Rounds (weekly at Wednesdays at noon)  This is a weekly conference for the Division of Infectious Disease and Global Health & Emerging Pathogens Institute (GHEPI).  A variety of topics including basic and clinical research as well as clinical updates are presented by expert speakers from Mount Sinai and other institutions.

The traditional two-year program is designed to offer the fellow comprehensive clinical training experiences and flexible research opportunities. Within the two-year experience, the fellow will spend:

  • Three months on the Mount Sinai General ID-HIV consultation service
  • Three months on the Elmhurst ID consultation service
  • Four months on the Mount Sinai Transplant ID consultation service, divided into two months on Solid Organ Transplant ID consultation and two months on BMT/Oncology ID consultation
    Fellows who chose to do the Transplant Infectious Disease Track will do an additional two 4-week blocks on Solid Organ Transplant ID and two 4-week blocks on BMT/Oncology ID consults during their second year of fellowship (total of 4 months on Solid Organ Transplant ID and 4 months on BMT/Oncology ID consults during their two year fellowship).
  • Two months on the Mount Sinai Inpatient HIV service.

During the second year of fellowship, fellows will have the option to choose between an additional month on the Mount Sinai Inpatient HIV service or pursuing the Transplant ID track depending on their career interests.

Each fellow has a weekly continuity clinic at either Mount Sinai or Elmhurst Hospital for the entirety of the two-year fellowship. In addition, each fellow will receive four weeks of formal microbiology training during their first year.  Fellows learn infection prevention and antimicrobial stewardship throughout their fellowship but will work directly with our Antimicrobial Stewardship Program and Infection Control/Hospital Epidemiology teams during their second years.  Fellows interested in further training in transplant infectious diseases can decide in the second half of their first year to pursue the Transplant ID (TID) track during their second year. The remainder of the fellowship is dedicated to research. Fellows can also elect to spend two to four weeks on the Pediatric Infectious Diseases during their second year.

The General ID-HIV Consultation Service provides the fellow with extensive experience in the diagnosis and management of infections in patients on a variety of services including internal medicine, neurology, surgery, and obstetrics and gynecology. In addition, there is extensive exposure to the management of infections in critically ill patients (MICU, CCU, SICU, and NSICU).  Fellows also consult on the HIV infected patients with infectious issues who are not admitted to the inpatient HIV medicine service.

The Transplant ID Consultation Service provides the fellow with extensive experience in the diagnosis and management of infections in transplant patients. Mount Sinai is one of the largest transplantation programs in the country with programs in solid organ transplantation, including liver, kidney, pancreas, intestine, heart, and bone marrow transplantation (BMT).  Fellows divide their time on transplant ID between the Organ Transplant ID service and the BMT/Oncology ID service.  The Organ Transplant ID services consults on patients before transplant, including complicated heart failure patients with ventricular assist devices and total artificial hearts, and post-organ transplant; the BMT/Oncology ID service sees patients with malignancies including leukemia, lymphoma and patients undergoing autologous and allogenic stem cell transplants.   

  • The Solid Organ Transplant (SOT) ID services consults on patients after liver, kidney, heart and small bowel transplant in addition to helping manage infectious complications in these patients before transplant, including infections in patients with ventricular assist devices and total artificial hearts. With our growing transplant services, the SOT ID consult service has been expanded into SOT A for liver, kidney and intestinal transplant and SOT B for heart transplant and cardiac devices.  Fellows will spend half of their SOT ID rotations (2 weeks) on SOT A and half on SOT B.
  • The BMT/Oncology ID service sees patients with malignancies including hematologic malignancies (such as leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma, myelodysplastic syndrome), patients undergoing autologous and allogenic stem cell transplants, and solid oncology patients.  

The Elmhurst ID Consultation Service at the Elmhurst Hospital Center, a city hospital located in Elmhurst, Queens that provides care to the nation's most internationally diverse community, is a truly unique experience. Patients served by this hospital are predominantly immigrants from all over the world including Central and South America, the Mediterranean basin, Asia, and Africa. As a result, fellows gain extensive experience in a broad range of international and tropical infections such as tuberculosis, malaria, typhoid fever, and other parasitic diseases. The Elmhurst teaching faculty are highly regarded, and the experience is highly valued by our fellows.

The Inpatient HIV Medicine (Silver Medicine) Rotation provides the fellow with direct experience in the management of hospitalized HIV patients. This service is a general medicine service managed by the HIV hospitalist with internal medicine house staff teams.  It is expected that the fellow will gain expertise in the management of routine and opportunistic infections as well as complications of antiretroviral therapy or related comorbid conditions.  This rotation also allows fellows the opportunity to develop the skills of an attending by teaching and supervising Internal Medicine residents and medical students.

Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) Training:  Fellows will learn screening, diagnosis and management of STIs in their continuity clinics and on the consult services. Additionally, second year fellows rotate through the Elmhurst outpatient ID clinics for one week to gain further experience in STI screening/management and HIV prevention (PrEP and PEP). Fellows will also complete the online STI course by the University of Washington (https://www.std.uw.edu) during their second year. 

Training in Microbiology: Fellows will participate in a formal four-week microbiology rotation under the supervision of the Medical Director of Clinical Microbiology, Melissa Gitman, MD, during their first year of fellowship. In addition, weekly microbiology rounds are held at both Mount Sinai and Elmhurst to review the relevant microbiology of the cases currently being managed by the fellows on the consult services.

Training in Infection Prevention/Hospital Epidemiology and Antimicrobial Stewardship:  Although infection prevention/hospital epidemiology and antimicrobial stewardship are taught at both sites throughout all clinical rotations, fellows will undergo formal training with a total of a four week rotation during their second year. This rotation will be supervised by Gopi Patel, MD, MS, the Mount Sinai Health System's Director of Antimicrobial Stewardship Program and Director of Infection Prevention at the Mount Sinai Hospital, and Sarah Schaefer, MD, Associate Director of Infection Prevention.  Second year fellows will work directly with our ID pharmacists, Victoria Adams, Pharm D, and Polina Lerner, Pharm D. Fellows will participate in the routine activities of the infection prevention program including patient isolation, needle stick injury, outbreak investigation, and infection prevention meetings. Second year fellows will also attend the monthly Antibiotic Monitoring Group (AMG). Additional didactic sessions complement the practical experiences. Fellows are expected to complete the online course with certification covering healthcare epidemiology, infection control and antimicrobial stewardship offered by the Society of Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA). SHEA also offers a separate course in antimicrobial stewardship.  Fellows who have a interest in infection prevention or antimicrobial stewardship as career paths have the option to pursue a more extensive training experience.

Continuity Clinic: Each fellow is assigned a weekly continuity of care clinic at either Mount Sinai or Elmhurst. The fellow will be responsible for attending this clinic throughout the two years, and participation in the clinic takes priority over all other activities. The clinic population at each site varies somewhat, with primary emphasis on the outpatient management of HIV and other chronic infections in addition to follow up care from all the ID and HIV inpatient services. Fellows are precepted at Mount Sinai by Judith Aberg, MD and Mikyung Lee, MD and at Elmhurst Hospital by Carlos Salama, MD, and Marilyn Fabbri, MD. Preceptors at both sites are dedicated to fellow teaching and supervision of the clinical care provided by the fellows.

International Health: Fellows interested in international health can explore opportunities available through The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.  The Division of Infectious Diseases has established close collaborations with Global Health and Emerging Pathogens Institute (GHEPI). Furthermore, select investigators in the ID Division have established international research collaborations in focused areas. We encourage applicants interested in international health to contact us for further information.

Each fellow is assigned a weekly continuity of care clinic at either Mount Sinai or Elmhurst which they will maintain during the two years of fellowship.  The Jack Martin Fund Clinic at the Mount Sinai Hospital serves a diverse population coming from both the local community as well as the wider New York area. The clinic offers truly multidisciplinary care, with robust on site social work, mental health and specialty services, including neurology, renal, gynecology and nutrition.  The Elmhurst HIV Clinic serves primarily an immigrant population from a wealth of different cultural backgrounds in the nation’s most diverse neighborhood.  As a part of the New York City Health and Hospital public health care system, the multidisciplinary team at Elmhurst clinic provides comprehensive medical care and supportive services to its patients and community.  At both sites, the fellows are responsible for comprehensive primary care of their HIV-infected patients, including management of medical complications of prolonged HIV infection and co-infection with viral hepatitis.  Both clinic sites provide multidisciplinary care with social work and access to mental health services.  Fellows are also able to see patients who need infectious disease consultations or follow up, those seeking HIV pre- or post-exposure prophylaxis, as well as patients who are mono-infected with viral hepatitis in their continuity clinics.