Infectious Disease - VAMC

The focus of the elective experience is on diagnosis and management of patients with an infectious disease diagnosis. This includes the evaluation of patients on medical and surgical services with head and neck infections, central nervous system infections, endocarditis and blood stream infections, pulmonary and GI infections, skin, bone and joint infections, travel related infections and infections in the immune-compromised host. During their time with us students gather data on patients assigned to them and then formally present the patients on rounds to members of the ID inpatient consult team. The consultation is directly supervised by the ID faculty and fellows. The students will develop an assessment and plan with the help of the ID fellows and faculty and document their recommendations to the teams.

Additionally, this elective will introduce the students to topics of antimicrobial spectrum, antimicrobial stewardship, and infection prevention. Clinically relevant aspects of microbiology and immunology are also explored.

Academic activities include a joint case conference with GW University Hospital every Thursday morning.  This is followed by didactic presentations by the faculty on infectious disease topics. 

Students have the option of taking this course for 2 or 4 weeks.

Course Learning Objectives:

By the end of this course, the student should be able to:

1. Recognize the epidemiology and clinical manifestations of common infectious diseases such as: head and neck infections, central nervous system infections, endocarditis, blood stream infections, pulmonary and GI infections, skin, joint and bone infections, travel related infections as well as infections in the neutropenic host and in transplant patients on immunosuppressive therapy.
2. Identify the microbiologic testing methodology used to help diagnose common infectious diseases.
3. Recognize antimicrobial spectrum of coverage and the choice of antibiotics used to treat common infectious diseases.
4. Identify infectious diseases that require isolation procedures.
5. Describe principles of antimicrobial stewardship and responsible use of antibiotics to reduce the risk of fostering further resistance in micro-organisms.
6. Identify preventive measures for reducing risk of infection such as vaccines and the correct use of preventive antibiotics.