Centered at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and with close ties to the Adult Infectious Diseases Program at UPMC, the fellowship offers fellows a wide breadth of clinical experience. Because Children’s Hospital is the major tertiary pediatric facility in a region that includes western Pennsylvania, southeast Ohio, western Maryland, and West Virginia, the clinical problems seen include entities ranging from the common, such as pneumonia and osteomyelitis; to the unusual, such as zoonotic infections. A broad range of rare and mixed infectious diseases in the more complex immunosuppressed patients are seen. With an active microbiology and virology laboratory, and in- and outpatient facilities designed for the care of children, the clinical experience of the trainee is comprehensive.
Moreover, the Pediatric Infectious Disease division at Children's maintains an exceptionally strong partnership with the solid organ and stem cell transplant, oncology, and primary immunodeficiency services. Thus, the CHP fellowship program provides outstanding training in the care of immunocompromised patients, especially transplant infectious diseases. The Fellowship Program has recently implemented 2 separate inpatient consult services:
- General Infectious Disease Service: Evaluation, treatment, and counseling of infectious diseases among otherwise immune competent children.
- Immune compromised Host Service: Specialized evaluation, treatment, and counseling of infectious diseases among immune compromised children including solid organ and hematopoietic stem cell recipients, patients receiving chemotherapy or immune suppressant medication due to autoimmune diseases.
Children’s is one of the oldest established pediatric transplant centers in the country with internationally recognized leaders in the field including pediatric transplant infectious diseases. Since 2015, Children's has performed a broad range of organ transplants that include kidneys (n=75), livers (n=170), hearts (n=56), lung and heart/lung (n=10), and intestines/multivisceral (n=38) in children.