Education and Training Methods

Didactic Education

• All fellows and Attending Physicians from both divisions meet for two hours every Friday for a formal clinical allergy or basic immunology lectures. 
• One two-hour journal club/literature review every Monday for two years. 
• Department of Medicine and Pediatric Grand Rounds every Wednesday and Thursday for 10 months. 
• Attendance at the Medical school basic immunology course every fall semester (only Internal Medicine/Pediatric Fellows). 
• Attendance of the Graduate School Advance Immunology course every other spring semester. 
• All other Medical school lectures are open to fellows. There are usually several immunology lectures scheduled every week. 
• Fellows are encouraged to attend and present their research at the annual American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology and The American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology  meetings every year. 

Cross Training

There is extensive cross training (Internal Medicine and Pediatric) between the two tracks.

• Both divisions see both children and adults in their faculty practice offices.
• Fellows do mandatory six-month rotations through the Internal Medicine Pediatric and/adult outpatient clinics in each of the two years.
• Adult track and Internal Medicine/Pediatric Track fellows have the opportunity to work in the faculty practices of the pediatric Attending Physician as part of their elective rotations.
• All fellows conduct in-patient consultations on both pediatric and adult patients. For the adult patients, consults are discussed with one of the Adult Attending Physicians. For the pediatric patients, consults are discussed with one of the Pediatric Attending Physicians.
• All fellows and Attending Physicians from both divisions meet for about two hours at a lunch conference every Friday, for case discussions and a formal lecture.

Electives

Pediatric Internal Medicine fellows have full time 1 month rotations. Available blocks include:

• ENT-Opportunity to learn ENT approach to treatment of rhinitis, otitis and sinusitis, improve ability in ready sinus CT scans, and to master technique of fiberoptic rhinolaryngoscopy. Fellows can observe sinus surgery if interested and can have a virtual surgical experience using a computer controlled surgical dummy.
• Dermatology – Fellows spend one full month in a full-time, formal dermatology rotation.
• Pulmonary-Opportunity to learn Pulmonary approach to management of asthma, learn methacholine challenge technique, performance and interpretation of pulmonary function testing, improve ability in reading chest CT scans. Fellows can also rotate through the emergency department to learn management of acute asthma in the ED setting.
• Primary immunodeficiency – Fellows spend time in the faculty practice office of Dr. Arye Rubinstein who has a very large population of patients with primary immunodeficiency problems Including SCID, Bruton’s agammaglobulinemia, DiGeorge syndrome, CVID, etc.
• Rheumatology – Fellows have a one month rotation with the Rheumatology Division (Adult and Pediatric).
• Transplantation - Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplants

Adult track fellows have the opportunity to design their own elective rotation schedules based on their educational needs and interests. These are usually taken as part-time participation in one-month blocks for some electives and as full-time, one-month blocks for others, such as Dermatology. The schedule is very flexible and can be adjusted based on the educational and research needs of the fellow.

Evaluation

In addition to the informal feedback that occurs throughout the year, there are regular scheduled, biannual evaluation sessions.  

All Attending Physicians submit written evaluations and the Fellows meet individually with two Attendings (one from each track) to review the evaluations, discuss their performance and plan improvements if necessary.