Transplant Infectious Diseases Fellowship

Our Transplantation Infectious Diseases Fellowship is a Texas Medical Board approved program that trains outstanding Infectious Diseases physicians for a clinical and academic career in Transplant Infectious Diseases. This position is eligible for J-1 via holders.

The one-year fellowship program combines training in Infectious Diseases in solid organ transplant patients including kidney, liver, lung and heart as well as oncology and hemato-oncology, with protected time for research.

CLINICAL TRAINING

All fellows will have the opportunity to rotate on our two dedicated Transplant Infectious Diseases Services at Memorial Hermann Hospital:

Thoracic Transplant service that sees patients being evaluated for or with a heart or a lung transplant. This service also evaluates patients with advanced heart failure such as those with left ventricular assist devices.
Abdominal transplant/immunosuppressed service sees patients being considered or with a kidney, kidney/pancreas or liver transplant. This service also takes care of patients with hematological malignancies. In addition, rotations will be arranged at MDACC Infectious Diseases Stem Cell Transplant Service.

Outpatient rotations include two dedicated Infectious Diseases Transplant Clinics, on that focuses on the thoracic service and one on abdominal/immunosuppressed patients. These clinics focus on pre-transplant and post-transplant evaluation of patients, as well as to follow up patients from the inpatient services.

DIDACTIC TRAINING

Fellows present transplant ID cases at our UT Friday Case conference, twice a year in our Houston Citywide case conference and once a year in the Transplant ID Collaborative meeting. Additionally, fellows are encouraged to attend the Heart/Lung transplant morbidity and mortality conference, the Quality Assurance Program Improvement conferences for the lung transplant and the abdominal transplant teams. Furthermore, it is encouraged for fellows to attend the monthly heart transplant pathology conference where the histopathology of the explanted hearts and the endomyocardial biopsies to evaluate rejection are discussed.

Fellows are encouraged to attend weekly UT-MDACC case conferences that focus on infectious problems of stem cell transplant recipients and the bimonthly Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) Transplant Meeting.

Additional conferences that are available are the weekly general ID conference, Antimicrobial Stewardship conference, Infectious Diseases Core Curriculum, HIV conference, and well as journal clubs at UT and UT MDACC.

RESEARCH

There is an abundance of research opportunities for fellows under the supervision of one of our Transplant Infectious Diseases Faculty: Dr. Luis Ostrosky-Zeichner, Dr. Rodrigo Hasbun, Dr. Mona Kapadia and Dr. Jose Portugal.

After completing their fellowship, our trainees usually pursue academic careers and transplant ID directorship in renowned centers in the US and around the world.