Clinical Rotations
The Division of Allergy/Immunology and Pulmonary as well as Cystic Fibrosis Center care for the inpatient and outpatient needs of infants and children referred to us both internally as well as from the entire Midwest and beyond. In addition to the Cystic Fibrosis program, fellows care for children with Asthma, Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia, Chronic Respiratory Insufficiency and Technology Dependence, and Sleep Disorders. In addition, infants and children with a wide variety of pulmonary diseases and breathing disorders are followed by the fellows.
An interdisciplinary team that includes personnel from Internal Medicine, Nursing, Nutrition, Social Work, Respiratory Therapy, and Physical Therapy provides comprehensive patient care. All CF patients are reviewed and discussed during a weekly interdisciplinary team meeting. While rotating on the inpatient service, the fellow is responsible for the care of all patients admitted onto the pulmonary service on the general wards and in the intensive care units of the hospital. Rounds are made daily with a designated inpatient faculty member, at which time the plan of care is reviewed.
On the outpatient rotation, the fellow sees new patients referred to the office, technology-dependent infants and children, acutely ill pulmonary patients for sick visits, and those patients followed by the Fellow in continuity. All office visits are precipitated by division faculty.
Diagnostic evaluation of inpatients and outpatients is supported by a well-equipped flexible bronchoscopy facility, as well as state-of-the-art pulmonary function testing and sleep disorders laboratories which comprehensively serve to assess lung function and respiratory nocturnal disorders in infants and older children. The pulmonary function laboratories include tests of routine pulmonary function, infant pulmonary function, ventilatory control, exercise-related breathing disorders, and bronchial reactivity.
Fellows are taught the indications for and techniques to perform flexible bronchoscopy and learn how to administer and interpret standard and infant pulmonary function tests, bronchial challenges and sleep studies.
Research Rotation
Each fellow is expected to complete a research project, in which the trainee researches a topic, and develops a hypothesis and the experimental method to test that hypothesis. The research may be basic research, or clinical, patient-oriented research. The fellow is expected to conduct the appropriate experiments, present the results at a national meeting, and write a manuscript to be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for publication.