Clinical Activities
Clinical Activities
Diverse patient populations are present at the University Hospital and the Portland VA Medical Center, ensuring a wide variety of clinical experience and pathology is available for broadening one's knowledge in infectious disease. The University Hospital and Portland VA Medical Center have a combined total of greater than 700 beds. We have two clinical consultative services, the General Infectious Diseases service and the Transplant Infectious Diseases service. Both training sites are active transplant centers, with a high volume of hematopoietic stem cell and solid organ transplantation. The General Infectious Disease Consult Service follows approximately 15 to 20 patients on a daily basis, with an average of three to five new consultations per day; the Transplant Infectious Disease Consult Service follows approximately 10-12 patients on a daily basis, with an average of one to two new consultations per day.
The scope of the consultation experience is broad, with a mix of community-acquired and hospital-acquired infections. Immune suppressed hosts provide a wealth of clinical experience and include patients on the oncology wards, the transplantation programs, the intensive care units and the University's trauma center.
Both hospitals have comprehensive HIV/AIDS programs, with expert faculty devoted to the care of this patient population. There are roughly 700 HIV positive patients who receive their care at either the University or the Portland Veterans Administration Medical Center. At both sites, there is an emphasis on the multidisciplinary team approach to comprehensive care. The ID consult service coordinates inpatient care for an additional 800 patients with HIV cared for by the Multnomah County HIV Program. The Research and Education Group, a federally-funded community-based non-profit research consortium, is closely affiliated with our centers, providing a channel for clinical trial enrollment.
The inpatient activities are complemented by ambulatory infectious disease specialty clinics, with a range of patient populations (HIV/AIDS, General Infectious Diseases, Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy, Transplant Infectious Diseases, etc.). Fellows' clinics are ½ day per week. Clinics are staffed by multidisciplinary teams and vary in workload, with the average clinic experience for fellows consisting of 4-5 patients per session. Separate clinics for HIV infection are conducted at both institutions, with fellows typically following a panel of at least 10 HIV-seropositive patients by the end of year one of training. A weekly HIV conference series convenes prior to each clinic session, offering a didactic series/journal club and drawing on the expertise of the supervising faculty.
