Surgical Infectious Disease Fellowship Program, Department of Surgery in the Medical School at the University of Minnesota

The section of Surgical Infectious Disease participates in the day-to-day activities of the general, transplant, and subspecialty surgical services. As would be expected, the Surgical Infectious Disease Service works closely with the Transplant Center and the Surgical Intensive Care Unit.

Our faculty, nurse clinicians, and medical fellows provide consultation and recommendations in diagnosing and managing infections in surgical patients. Consultation takes place by telephone if a restricted antimicrobial agent is requested, but more often the consulting team deals with what are often very difficult issues at the patient's bedside in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit or on the surgical ward.

A formal service seminar is held on Friday morning to discuss interesting cases and review in-depth a specific area of the literature. In addition, each medical fellow rotating on the service is encouraged to assume the direction of a specific clinical project. This project may entail a retrospective review of a certain problem, an unusual case, or a small series of cases, but more frequently involves overseeing the conduct of large-scale randomized clinical trials. The focus is on the use of antibacterial, antifungal, or antiviral agents for the prophylaxis and treatment of a variety of infectious diseases.

Medical fellows are selected to rotate on this service based on their interest in infectious disease problems. They concurrently pursue research training. One fellow is assigned to the consulting team for a given week, once every six to eight weeks. Most fellows have rotated on this service for two to three years.