{"id":5547,"date":"2014-10-25T07:20:58","date_gmt":"2014-10-25T11:20:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/?p=5547"},"modified":"2015-05-18T11:12:27","modified_gmt":"2015-05-18T15:12:27","slug":"what-makes-an-ideal-applicant-for-a-fellowship-in-infectious-diseases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/what-makes-an-ideal-applicant-for-a-fellowship-in-infectious-diseases\/2014\/10\/25\/","title":{"rendered":"What Makes An Ideal Applicant for a Fellowship in Infectious Diseases?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re at the tail end of the ID fellowship interview process, and am pleased to report\u00a0we&#8217;ve seen some outstanding applicants.<\/p>\n<p>They know that our field is the most interesting in medicine, and they view our recent &#8220;Epidemic of Epidemics&#8221; &#8212; to coin a phrase from John Bartlett to describe all this activity (Ebola, MERS, Enterovirus D68, etc.) &#8212; as not as a deterrent, but instead an important and fascinating challenge.<\/p>\n<p>Face it: if it&#8217;s in the news these days, and it&#8217;s health related, there&#8217;s a good chance it&#8217;s an ID topic. Take a look at this, for example:<\/p>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/www.google.com\/trends\/embed.js?hl=en-US&amp;q=ebola&amp;content=1&amp;cid=TIMESERIES_GRAPH_0&amp;export=5&amp;w=500&amp;h=330\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>In that spirit, I thought I would share a recent email exchange with\u00a0a former colleague:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">Hi Paul,<br \/>\nI just started as\u00a0program director for an internal medicine residency program in Illinois.\u00a0I have been doing some career counseling with the residents, and have decided to email specialists\u00a0I have known along the way with the following two questions about their field:<br \/>\n1. What are the characteristics of an excellent candidate for your\u00a0fellowship?<br \/>\n2. How important is research experience? Bench vs. clinical?<br \/>\nHope you&#8217;re well,<br \/>\nCraig<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s my response:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">Hi Craig,<br \/>\nWe look for the top clinical people, in particular those who relish the \u201cgreat case\u201d and love taking detailed patient histories (you know, does the patient have any <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/index.php\/id-doctors-pets-in-the-medical-history-and-a-cute-puppy\/2013\/03\/23\/\" target=\"_blank\">pets<\/a>, or has he\/she been spelunking). They should definitely also enjoy\u00a0bread-and-butter inpatient ID (which includes plenty of surgical\/routine stuff as well as the fascinomas) and\u00a0HIV and\u00a0the complexities of transplant patients. It&#8217;s great when they\u00a0express enthusiasm for the minutiae of microbiology (such as <a href=\"http:\/\/ijs.sgmjournals.org\/content\/53\/3\/631.full\" target=\"_blank\">has\u00a0<em>Strep bovis<\/em> changed its\u00a0name?<\/a>) as well as\u00a0anti-infective agents (another cephalosporin &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/investors.cubist.com\/Mobile\/file.aspx?IID=4093793&amp;FID=23271221\" target=\"_blank\">ceftolozane\/tazobactam<\/a> &#8212; is coming soon, am sure you&#8217;re thrilled). And they should want to be the local &#8220;expert&#8221;on all the newsworthy stuff that fills our days.<br \/>\nAs for the research, it\u2019s more important that they have a strong idea of what they would like to do. Yes if they have research experience, that\u2019s a bonus, but it\u2019s not required.<br \/>\nAnd they shouldn\u2019t be going into ID\u00a0for the $$$, or if they love to do procedures, because\u00a0if they are, they are not very smart.<br \/>\nNice hearing from you after all these years!<br \/>\nPaul<\/p>\n<p>Sound about right? And what&#8217;s the story with <em>Strep bovis<\/em> anyway?<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of pets and surgical infections, this one never gets old:<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TnOdAT6H94s\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re at the tail end of the ID fellowship interview process, and am pleased to report\u00a0we&#8217;ve seen some outstanding applicants. They know that our field is the most interesting in medicine, and they view our recent &#8220;Epidemic of Epidemics&#8221; &#8212; to coin a phrase from John Bartlett to describe all this activity (Ebola, MERS, Enterovirus [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-care","category-hiv","category-infectious-diseases","category-medical-education"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}