Our vision is to provide the highest quality care to children with complex infectious diseases while continuously improving and advancing the field of pediatric infectious diseases.

Our Mission: The UCI/CHOC Pediatric Infectious Diseases fellowship training program prepares individuals to excel in clinical infectious diseases as well as becoming the next leaders in academic pediatric infectious diseases research and education.

Fellows in Pediatric Infectious Diseases will participate in a 3-year program which will prepare them for successful careers in Pediatric Infectious Diseases and assure their qualification for the American Board of Pediatrics certifying examination in Pediatric Infectious Diseases. During each year of training, fellows will spend time on the Pediatric Infectious Diseases inpatient consult service (75% time in year 1, 25% time in year 2, 25% time in year 3) and also care for patients in an outpatient setting, evaluating new patients and managing established patients in a variety of infectious disease clinics The remainder of each year is devoted to scholarly activity (25% time in year 1, 75% time in year 2, 75% time in year 3), including a mentored research project and an interdisciplinary quality improvement project. These scholarly activities will be tailored to meet each fellow’s educational and career goals.

During the first year of training, fellows will experience one four-week rotation on the adult ID medicine team at UCI Medical Center, an invaluable experience exposing them to the differences, intricacies and overlap of infectious diseases in the adult vs pediatric setting.

ID Inpatient clinical rotations:

1. Critical Care Units and Hematology/Oncology
2. General pediatrics and surgical
3. A 1-month adult infectious diseases experience at UCI Medical Center
4. A 2-week rotation at the Orange County Health Care Agency to train in epidemiology of infectious diseases (i.e. tuberculosis, sexually transmitted diseases, and other reportable diseases) and , obtain exposure to lab techniques and diagnostics tests available through the health department, and learn about outbreak investigation and mitigation.

ID Outpatient clinical experiences include:

1. The pediatric infectious diseases clinic
2. Primary immunodeficiency clinic – a multidisciplinary clinic with ID, hematology and immunology
3. HIV/KIDS clinics

Call schedules:
Fellows are scheduled to be on call, including weekends, for eight weeks each of the three years.

PTO:
Fellows have 4 weeks of PTO scheduled per year.

Training in research and completion of a research project related to pediatric infections is an important component of the fellowship. Each pediatric infectious disease fellow must design and conduct a scholarly project in his or her subspecialty area with supervision provided by an assigned faculty mentor. Fellows will have 20 months of protected time for research that is divided among all three fellowship years but is more heavily weighted toward the second and third years of training as noted above. The project may be basic science or clinical in nature, depending on the fellow’s interests. Research mentors are available through both CHOC and UCI and opportunities for lab research are strengthened by the research excellence of the infectious diseases team from UCI. Fellows will have the opportunity to seek out research opportunities and mentors at both institutions.

The fellowship core curriculum will provide training in biostatistics, lab and clinical research methodology, study design, grant preparation, research ethics and Institutional Review Boards, evidence-based medicine and quality improvement.

• ID case discussions (weekly)
• ID fellows core teaching conference (2-3 per month
• Microbiology/pathology rounds (twice a month, once as a team, once just with fellow)
• Journal club (monthly)
• Fellows core curriculum (monthly)
• Infection prevention team meetings (monthly)
• Antibiotic stewardship program meetings (quarterly)
• Fellows will also participate in teaching pediatric residents and medical students through morning report, noon conferences, Grand Rounds and on the inpatient services.

University of California, Irvine
UCI provides extensive, high quality education and clinical training, with 560 full-time faculty members and more than 1,300 volunteer faculty members from 26 clinical departments. UCI sponsors a multitude of innovative and highly productive research programs. There are 61 ACGME-accredited training programs. In addition to its adult programs, UCI serves as the sponsor for residencies in Pediatrics, Child Neurology, Combined Pediatrics/Anesthesia, and Medical Genetics, as well as fellowships in Neonatal/Perinatal Medicine, Pediatric Pulmonology, Pediatric Critical Care, Pediatric Endocrinology, Pediatric Urology, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

CHOC Hospital in Orange
CHOC is an academic, community-based hospital that serves as the main site for training in the fellowship. It has 334 beds, including a 30-bed PICU, 12-bed cardiac ICU, 72-bed NICU and separate oncology and neuroscience units. In 2016-2017, there were 12,891 hospital discharges with 89,791 ED visits and 4,252 transports to CHOC. CHOC’s ED is a Level II pediatric trauma center. CHOC also operates primary care and specialty clinics throughout the county. The hospital serves about 2 million patients over four counties.

The training and education of medical students, residents and fellows has been a longstanding focus of CHOC. Each year, CHOC trains about 290 residents and fellows from 38 different training programs, along with 190 medical students.

Applications are accepted through the Electronic Resident Application System (ERAS) and we participate in the National Residency Match Program (NRMP).

UCI/CHOC Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program
1201 W. La Veta Ave.
Orange, CA 92868
Evelyn Martinez-Cruz
Program Coordinator
phone: 714-509-4976