Graduate Medical Education

The National Capital Consortium offers subspecialty, fellowship training in Infectious Diseases at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The fellowship is a three-year program open to Army and Navy Medical Corps officers and designed to prepare internists for a successful career in both the clinical and research aspects of Infectious Diseases. The program is approved for five fellows each year.

The fellowship is accredited by the ACGME and board pass rates among prior graduates dating back to 2006 remain 100%.

The training program is organized to provide a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary approach to learning about a wide variety of Infectious Diseases in both military and civilian hospitals. Upon completion of the training program, fellows are board eligible to practice adult infectious diseases.

Clinical focus during fellowship
The majority of clinical training occurs at WRNMMC where our program's faculty is comprised of highly qualified, board certified Infectious Diseases specialists with a wide background of clinical and research interests. In addition, fellows have external rotations on the inpatient consult services at Children's National Medical Center, Washington Hospital Center and the National Institutes of Health. Fellows on the inpatient consult service at WRNMMC participate in microbiology rounds daily and an Infectious Diseases pharmacist joins the fellows on their rounds as well.

All fellows are funded to attend several courses throughout the training period to broaden their educational opportunities. These courses include the Infectious Diseases Board Review Course in Washington DC, the National Jewish Health Tuberculosis Course in Denver CO and the Infectious Diseases Society of America annual meeting.

Fellows see outpatients in the Infectious Diseases clinic located in building 7 of WRNMMC. All fellows have a ½ day clinic once a week throughout fellowship where they follow their own cohort of HIV infected patients longitudinally in addition to providing care for other patients with acute or chronic infections. A social worker and psychiatrist are available every day in clinic to support the fellows in patient care. In addition, during non-inpatient consult months, fellows see a ½ day of clinic per week in the International Travel Clinic at WRNMMC.

Fellows also participate in a rigorous didactic schedule including weekly lectures that cover a broad spectrum of Infectious Diseases, weekly case-conference and twice-monthly journal club. Many of the speakers for the didactic sessions are from local institutions such as NIH, Washington Hospital Center and Johns Hopkins University which adds to the diversity of the educational experience. In addition, all fellows are members of the Greater Washington Infectious Diseases Society and participate in monthly city-wide ID rounds with Georgetown University Hospital, Washington Hospital Center, George Washington University Hospital, Howard University Hospital, Children’s National Medical Center and the NIH. Finally, all fellows attend the four month long American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Diploma Course in Clinical Tropical Medicine and Travelers’ Health at the Uniformed Services University on the WRNMMC campus which includes an overseas experience.

Research focus during fellowship
The WRNMMC is ideally located within one of the nation’s most prolific and well funded research centers in both the Department of Defense and civilian sectors. Clinical research is required of all fellows and in the past has included areas of focus such as malaria vaccine development, hospital epidemiology of multi-drug resistant organisms, antibiotic resistance mechanisms, many aspects of HIV infection and sexually transmitted infections. Fellows are introduced to a wide variety of mentors during the summer of their first year to help them select an area of research that interests them. All fellows are expected to have at least one presentation at a nation meeting and one first author manuscript accepted for publication in a peer reviewed journal by the end of their fellowship.