A Day in the Life of an ID Fellow at TCH

• 7:45 a.m.: Pick up “new ID consult” pager from ID Team A fellow and finish EPIC pre-rounding
• 8 a.m.: Start seeing old patients, divide up new consults during day between the two ID teams (A & B)
• 9–9:30 a.m.: On Tuesday/Thursday, attend microbiology rounds
• 9:30 a.m.: Meet up with learners (typically one medical student and one intern or resident) and attending, lead rounds throughout the day
• 12 p.m.: Attend virtual fellows or faculty case conference, fellows or faculty journal club, CityWide, core lecture, or fellow-run Redbook review
• 1 p.m.: See new consults, finish rounding on old patients
• 5 p.m.: Finish notes, touch base with on-call attending with any late calls.
• 6–7 p.m.: Head home, text learners their patient assignments for next day
• 7 p.m. – 5 a.m.: Home call, touch base with attending with any questions!
• Hand off “new consult” pager around 7:45 a.m. the next day!

A typical research day begins at 8 a.m. arriving in the office.  When assigned to a research month we suggest you lay out an agenda for the week and create a to-do-list. Items on the agenda may include:

• Completing chart review for your primary research project
• Editing manuscripts associated with research
• Reading articles/literature related to research
• Working on posters or presentations for a conference
• Working on a personal ID board review agenda

During the week fellows should meet with their mentors at least once in person or via Zoom to discuss research progress and discuss plans going forward. These meetings are especially helpful because the mentors help troubleshoot problems and they allow fellows to bounce ideas regarding their research.

During the noon hour there is usually a conference, lecture, or board review. On research months, fellows participate in teaching by giving lectures to learners who rotate through the ID service and they have the opportunity to present interesting cases seen while on the inpatient service to the Infectious Diseases Division at Texas Children’s or to the ID community at the Citywide conference. When there is not a lecture or conference, fellows have lunch with the co-fellows.

In the afternoon there may be meetings with others for side-projects such as writing a case-report or a QI project. Fellows may use the rest of their time to finish homework or work on a presentation for a conference. The day finishes around 4:30–5 p.m.