Overview
The training program
The University of Washington
The city
Fellows Handbook

Overview

The fellowship program of the Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the University of Washington is a two to four year training experience intended for those interested in an academic career. Both M.D. and Ph.D. fellows are invited to apply. The fellowship is funded by training grants from the National Institutes of Health, private funding agencies, and institutional sources. Currently, 25 fellows participate in the fellowship program, with 7-10 new fellows accepted each year. More than 80% of past U.W. Infectious Diseases Fellowship trainees have obtained faculty positions in academic medicine.

The City

The city of Seattle is located on Puget Sound between the Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges, providing easy access to sailing, skiing, hiking, and other outdoor recreational activities. The city also offers diverse cultural opportunities including theater, ballet, symphony, and an internationally renowned film festival, in addition to high quality residential living close to University facilities.

The University of Washington

The University of Washington has a student population of 39,000 and grants approximately 6,500 bachelor's and 3,200 advanced degrees annually. The University of Washington is a major biomedical research institution, ranking first in the United States among public institutions (and second overall) in obtaining federal research funds. The School of Medicine has over 1,200 full-time faculty members, including clinical and basic science departments.

 The well-established Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, within the Department of Medicine, consists of 73 full-time faculty members, 16 adjunct or affiliate faculty members, and 55 clinical faculty. The faculty include many nationally and internationally recognized investigators in diverse subspecialty areas, including phagocyte biology and function, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, viral diseases, immuno-compromised hosts, bacterial pathogenesis, geographic medicine, urinary tract infections, and the molecular biology of infectious diseases. The Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program is based at the University of Washington Medical Center and four affiliated institutions: Harborview Medical Center, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center/Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Heath Care System, and Children's Hospital and Medical Center.

The Training Program

The goals of the Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program are to provide the highest quality clinical and research training in order to equip fellows with the skills they will need for a career in academic infectious diseases. Fellows are encouraged to focus early in their fellowship on a particular area of research and to devote much of their time to a productive investigative experience. Although formally accepted for a three-year commitment, many fellows will spend four years in fellowship training.

Research training can be selected with a major focus in laboratory investigation or in clinical epidemiology. Our program allows selected fellows, who choose clinical epidemiology, to pursue a M.P.H. degree in epidemiology during infectious diseases fellowship. Because the M.P.H. training requires a significant time commitment for course work in the first year, inpatient clinical duties are distributed throughout the first two years of fellowship for M.P.H. candidates. Though our program can be flexible, most inpatient clinical duties for fellows who pursue laboratory investigation are completed by the end of the first year of the fellowship so that uninterrupted research time is available.

The selection of specific research projects is accomplished through discussions between individual investigators and fellows during and after the time of the initial interview and generally before the candidates actually start the program. Fellows will spend the majority of their fellowship working in their primary area of research.

 Research training is offered in nine areas of special emphasis, representing the principal strengths of our faculty. Each area offers the trainee a variety of well-developed and well-funded research programs from which to choose.

 The Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases also provides fellows with research opportunities in conjunction with the closely allied Department of Global Health and the basic science departments in the areas of microbial pathogenesis, immunology, microbiology, molecular virology, and parasitology.