Infectious Diseases Consultation

“During your inpatient consultations, our priority is helping you hone your diagnostic skills,” says faculty member—and former fellow—Alyssa Shon, MD.

At each of our major training sites, you’ll perform inpatient consultations and follow up with patients during their hospitalizations.

Through this experience, you’ll develop and refine your clinical evaluation skills, specifically:

developing appropriate differential diagnoses
assessing the need for hospitalization
using diagnostic evaluation strategies
formulating treatment plans

In addition, you’ll improve your communications skills by working with referring physicians and ensuring continued care for patients’ medical problems.

Consultation rotations give you a comprehensive understanding of diagnostic microbiology techniques and extensive experience interpreting the results, under consistent faculty supervision. They also develop the important skill of working with the primary care physician or team to ensure that recommendations are appropriately enacted.

Education forms a key component of consultation: You’ll teach and supervise trainees on the primary care team and on the infectious disease service. You’ll also be responsible for educating patients about their medical conditions.

To ensure informed, up-to-date treatment decisions, you will consult the medical literature to research topics relevant to your cases and make your findings available to the primary care team.

Training Sites

Buffalo General Medical Center
1/31/18
You will see infectious syndromes common to general medicine and surgery as well as infections secondary to cardiothoracic surgery, neurosurgery, plastic surgery, hand surgery, orthopedic surgery and vascular surgery at this 500-bed acute care center on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.
Buffalo VA Medical Center
1/31/18
With one of the highest case severity indexes within the VHA system, this urban facility provides medical, surgical, mental health, long-term and outpatient care to veterans. You will care for patients with common infectious syndromes and learn the principles of outpatient microbial therapy, antimicrobial stewardship and telemedicine.
Erie County Medical Center
1/31/18
This 583-bed medical center houses a pioneering trauma/burn center—unique in Western New York—a regional renal transplant center and centers for rehabilitation and cardiac care. In addition to consulting with patients who have common infectious syndromes, you will see patients with infections resulting from burns, trauma and solid organ transplants.
Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
2/8/19
You will conduct clinical consultations with patients who have hematological malignancies, uncommon immunodeficient states and infections following major oncologic surgery, as well as stem cell transplant recipients at this 120-bed comprehensive cancer center.