Neuroinfectious Disease Questions

[Akqr75]

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Hi all,
I've been pretty interested in both neurology and ID for awhile now, and after doing a bit of research, I found out about the subspecialty of neuroinfectious disease. I was wondering if someone in the field or familiar with the field could comment on what their day to day is like/most common cases, potential opportunities in the specialty (CDC research?), and what residency programs are well known for fellowships in the field? I've been looking at various neurological organizations and residency sites, but there's a paltry amount of available information, thanks!

 

[Hank Rearden]

This is not my field of interest, but I can pass along what I know. NeuroID is a fairly small field and one typically reserved for academics. It used to be that people headed down this path would finish their neurology training and then do a regular ID fellowship. Now a days that is seldom done, because you can no longer get board certified as an ID doc without first doing a general medicine residency. I suppose you could do both an IM and neuro residency first, but the time spent in training seems prohibitive to most sane people. Most people going down this path now do a neuro residency and then complete a research fellowship, studying some particular neuroID, then go on to get grants and stay in academics. This means their future career is 80% research and 20% clinical. I'm not sure that's what you're looking for, but that is the path that most people take in the field. There may be a place or two out there offering a purely clinical NeuroID fellowship, but I can't think of any.

 

[typhoonegator]

We have a neuroID fellowship, which really encompasses a bunch of neuro-rheum as well as neuroID. After fellowship, these people certainly can do research, but they can also stay pretty clinical if they prefer. Day-to-day, most neuroID is HIV-related, and our NeuroID staff is active in the HIV clinic. Beyond that, the ones I know have active general neurology clinics where they are skewed toward the neuro-rheum and post-infectious population.

It is a very small field, and the relatively small scope of practice means that there isn't room for a whole team of them even at major academic centers. To cover your salary, you are either going to want to get grant money for research, do a lot of general outpatient clinic time, or pile up admin responsibilities with a salary support associated with them, like clerkship directorships, QI leadership, and the like.

Pretty cool field, though.

 

[mrravioli]

I echo these comments. I'm actually doing a "make my own" fellowship in this area so can comment in more detail on some of the programs. University of Washington neurology has a strong relationship with ID, and there is funding to support a fellow who will get full ID training. Of course, you can't get boarded in ID without having done at least 2 years of medicine, but that doesn't prevent you from getting the training through them if you want it. UCSF has a T32 training grant for neuroHIV training that is very flexible and allows you to tailor your training to heavily clinical through ID vs mostly research. Johns Hopkins does as well and is probably the deepest program out there. University of Colorado has a research grant for fellowship research training in neurovirology (Don Gilden and Ken Tyler are there). NINDS has a research-based neuro-ID fellowship as well. UCSD has a large neuroHIV program with some fellowship funding focused on neurocognitive issues in HIV. The Epidemiologic Intelligence Service through the CDC is another very attractive (not neurology specific) option and is a 2 year hands on fellowship in which you work in outbreak situations, etc. MGH is flirting with setting up a program, but it's still early. Karen Roos is a great resource at Indiana University.

Definitely a small but hopefully up and coming field with the growing interest in global health, etc.