Clinical Experiences

The clinical rotations in the UCSF ID Fellowship provide an incredible breadth of ID training. Fellows see a broad diversity of patients and cases while rotating at our three clinical campuses: UCSF Medical Center, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, and the San Francisco VA Medical Center. Faculty at all three sites are committed to providing outstanding clinical education and partner with fellows in providing exceptional clinical care. Infectious diseases specialty pharmacists are embedded into the teams at all three training sites and provide robust real-time education on antimicrobial management.

UCSF Medical Center (UCSFMC) is a quaternary care medical referral center for Northern California and is also the community hospital for the western third of San Francisco. Fellows rotate on two inpatient infectious diseases teams at UCSFMC: the General Infectious Diseases Consult Service and the Immunocompromised Host (Transplant) Infectious Diseases Service. Between these two services, fellows are exposed to a wide range of infectious diseases in both immunocompetent and immunocompromised hosts. The General ID Consult Service sees patients on a variety of services including medicine, cardiology, neurology, and surgery (including general surgery, orthopedics, neurosurgery, and surgical subspecialties). The Transplant ID Service sees patients primarily on the solid organ transplant and hematologic malignancy services. UCSFMC is one of the largest solid organ transplant centers in the country and also has a large hematologic malignancy and stem cell transplantation program.

Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (ZSFG) is the county hospital of San Francisco and a level-one trauma center. The hospital cares for patients from diverse backgrounds across San Francisco. In the early 1980s, ZSFG physicians were leaders in the care of patients with HIV/AIDS and created the country's first outpatient HIV/AIDS clinic ("Ward 86"). Fellows provide consults for patients on a variety of services including medicine, cardiology, neurology, obstetrics/gynecology, and surgery (including general surgery, orthopedics, neurosurgery, and surgical subspecialties). Fellows also attend Infection Control meetings at ZSFG in order to learn the principles of infection prevention in the inpatient setting. 

San Francisco VA Medical Center (SFVAMC) is a large VA hospital in San Francisco and is a referral center for veterans from across Northern California. Fellows on the inpatient ID consult service see patients on a variety of services including medicine and surgery (general surgery, orthopedics, neurosurgery, and surgical subspecialties). Fellows also gain experience in geriatric ID by seeing consults at the Community Living Center on the SFVAMC campus. 

Ambulatory Training: HIV Continuity Clinic
The primary sites for HIV continuity clinics during the first year of fellowship are the HIV clinic at SFVAMC and the 360 Wellness Center (the HIV clinic of UCSF Medical Center). Second and third year fellows may have their primary HIV clinic at the SFVAMC HIV clinic, the 360 Wellness Center, or the ZSFG HIV continuity clinic at "Ward 86." All HIV clinics have a robust HIV curriculum and extensive support staff to offload clinic work from fellows. Second and third year fellows may also have general ID clinics at the UCSFMC or ZSFG Infectious Diseases Clinics.  

Ambulatory Training: Specialty ID Experiences
First year fellows have an Ambulatory Block rotation that includes a variety of specialized ambulatory ID experiences including Tuberculosis Directly Observed Therapy (with the Department of Public Health TB Clinic), Addiction Medicine, Antibiotic Stewardship, and ID e-consults at UCSFMC. This rotation also has built-in time for meetings with mentors. During the Microbiology and Pediatrics rotations, fellows also have the opportunity to participate in clinics at the San Francisco City Clinic (STD clinic of San Francisco) and SF Department of Public Health Tuberculosis Clinic.

Pediatric ID Consult Service
A unique part of our program is the opportunity for a four-week rotation on the Pediatric ID Consult service at the UCSFMC-Mission Bay Campus. Fellows are not the primary ID provider but instead work with the pediatric ID fellow to gain experience in the care of children and adolescents with various infectious diseases.

Microbiology Rotation
Fellows have a four week rotation at the SFVAMC Microbiology Laboratory where they learn the critical components of microbiology including specimen processing and workflow, biochemical testing, antimicrobial susceptibility testing, and advanced molecular techniques.

Distribution of Clinical Rotations During the First Year of ID Fellowship

Clinical Rotations During the Second and Third Years
All second-year fellows spend 2 weeks on the Transplant ID Service at UCSFMC, 2 week on the HIV Inpatient Consult Service at ZSFG, and 5-6 weekends per year at UCSFMC seeing new consults.  Fellows may do additional clinical time as appropriate for their career goals (e.g, fellows in the Clinician Educator Track do additional clinical time). See the section on Fellowship Tracks for more information.