Infectious Disease Fellowship

Program Director's Welcome

Thank you for your interest in the Memorial Healthcare System Infectious Disease Fellowship Program.

Belonging to one of the largest public healthcare systems in the United States, the Memorial Healthcare System’s Infectious Disease Fellowship Program offers a thoroughly balanced experience in general infectious diseases, immunocompromised infections, and HIV/AIDS. Being a community based training program consisting of teaching faculty from both university and community backgrounds, our fellowship boasts a truly synergistic hybrid of academic and community-based practice experiences.

The fellowship will be based at Memorial Hospital West and Memorial Regional Hospital. Both hospitals have a combined inpatient bed census of over 1,000 and more than 200,000 ED visits annually. This incredibly rich clinical volume stemming from South Florida’s diverse communities also includes a significant population with HIV/AIDS and immigrant and travel associated tropical diseases. The Moffitt Malignant Hematology and Cellular Therapy Program and Memorial Transplant Institute also provide a robust volume of patients with infections of the immunocompromised host.

Two notable strengths of our program include our large HIV/AIDS ambulatory care practice which includes a significant population of Ryan White funded patients and active role in the Broward County HIV Health Planning Council. Furthermore, being the Division of Infectious Disease for the five hospital system, fellows will also have a unique opportunity to actively participate in institutional wide policy and protocol development and management through the Infection Prevention and Control and Antibiotic Stewardship Program.

Our excellent faculty hold academic appointments at Florida Atlantic University, Florida International University, and Nova Southeastern University and are committed to training our future physicians. In addition to creating institutional wide protocols, our faculty lead numerous ongoing projects, some of which include COVID-19 treatment regimens, linkage of care models for patients newly diagnosed with HIV or lost to care, and quality improvement in transitions of care in disease specific populations.

Our graduates will:

• Provide a combination of compassionate clinical care and academic contribution to the scientific advancement of our field (including fighting the next pandemic).
• Possess mastery of a wide variety of infectious diseases, including those unique to South Florida’s diverse immigrant population.
• Provide comprehensive HIV care that isn’t fragmented between a PCP and an ID specialist.
• Pursue leadership roles to affect change.
• Adhere to evidence based medicine and motivated independent growth.
• Serve the local and greater community.

Our Mission Statement

Train the next generation of physicians to master general and subspecialty infectious diseases to:

• develop a lifetime habit of academic growth,
• adopt an uncompromising standard of evidence-based medicine practice, and
• care for patients and serve institutional and community needs with the highest of quality and latest scientific developments.

Provide the institutional, local, and greater community with an academically-oriented infectious disease service that

• practices evidence-based medicine and compassionate patient care,
• serves in educational, administrative, and leadership roles, and
• contributes to the field of infectious diseases through scholarly activity.

I look forward to you learning more about our Infectious Disease fellowship, and I wish you the best of luck in your pursuit of a career in this exciting field.

Kenneth Poon, MD

• We are a community-based, academic, university affiliated program sponsored by Memorial Healthcare System. Memorial trains hundreds of residents, medical students, and nurses each year and is affiliated with Florida Atlantic University (FAU), Florida International University (FIU), and Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine. Memorial's GME department is committed to the highest quality, culturally diverse and transparent training programs, having established multiple successful ACGME accredited residency programs.
• Memorial Healthcare System, one of the largest public healthcare systems in the United States, has 6 hospitals in South Broward County, with 2,020 total in-patient beds and over 400,000 ED and urgent care visits each year. The infectious disease fellowship will be based at the two largest hospitals in the System, Memorial Hospital West and Memorial Regional Hospital. All complex infectious disease problems are treated at these two hospitals.
• Great patient diversity and a broad range of pathology which rivals any large inner-city or university based hospital and reflects the demographic diversity of South Florida.
• Our small-sized program allows us to get to know each of our fellows on a personal level and provides a learning environment rich with camaraderie and an ability to develop one-on-one relationships with colleagues, faculty and mentors.
• We have an Office of Human Research with our own IRB. The Chief Medical Research Officer and her team will assist fellows with the development of their research and submission to the IRB. Participation in some form of scholarly activity is expected for graduation from the program.
• Fellows will be trained in the basic concepts of QI and Patient Safety and will have the opportunity to participate in QI projects during their training.

About Memorial Hospital West

Memorial Hospital West opened in May 1992 with 100 beds to serve the growing population of western Broward. Today, the hospital has 486 beds and provides high-quality, patient- and family-centered care. In 2020, it provided approximately 80,000 adult ER visits, 4,347 inpatient infectious diseases consultation referrals, and 3,142 inpatients diagnosed with COVID-19.

Our hospital hosts Moffitt Cancer Center and a dedicated inpatient department of 44 beds for the Moffitt Malignant Hematology and Cellular Therapy program. Performing 68 stem cell transplants and 388 admissions in 2020, there is an abundance of patients with infectious complications of hematological malignancy.

Additionally, the Division of Infectious Disease, the Department of Clinical Pharmacy, and the Moffitt Cancer Center collaborate in a unique hospital committee on multiple protocols and antibiotic stewardship policies for the Moffitt Malignant Hematology and Cellular Therapy program.

About Memorial Regional Hospital

Memorial Regional Hospital, the flagship facility of Memorial Healthcare System, is one of the largest hospitals in Florida, with a reputation for advanced medicine and technology. The 571-bed hospital is one of six Level I Trauma Centers in the state qualified to treat the most severe, life-threatening injuries.

Among its renowned programs are:

• Level 1 Trauma Center
• Memorial Cardiac and Vascular Institute
• Memorial Cancer Institute
• Memorial Neuroscience Institute
• Bariatric Surgery Center recognized by the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program (MBSAQIP)

The Memorial Transplant Institute, home of Memorial Health System’s kidney transplant and heart transplant programs, is also based at our flagship hospital. With over 120 kidney and 64 heart transplantations as of January 2021, the Division of Infectious Disease provides subspecialty care for the large solid organ transplant population. This includes pre-transplant evaluations, post-transplant prophylaxis and immunosuppression management, ambulatory and inpatient treatment of pre- and post-transplant infectious complications, cardiac device and LVAD infections, and other opportunistic infections associated with immunosuppression.

The Microbiology Department for Memorial Health System’s five hospital system is located at this facility. Its Biosafety Level 3 laboratory staffed with 35 clinical personnel and a chief microbiologist is capable of broad culture and susceptibility testing for viral, bacterial, fungal, and parasitic organisms as well as nonculture microbial detection, such as molecular nucleic acid, antigenic, and MALDI-TOF methodologies of multiple fluid and tissue types. The microbiology lab has been one of the sites praised by the internal medicine residents for its educational experience.

About the Memorial Physician Group Infectious Disease Clinic

The Memorial Healthcare System Division of Infectious Disease – a team of physicians, advanced registered nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and support clinical staff specialized in general, transplant, tropical and infectious diseases, HIV care, and travel medicine – provides ambulatory care and consultation for the full spectrum of infectious diseases and HIV medicine to the local community and hospitals serving 3,383 patients in 2020 through the Memorial Physician Group Infectious Disease Clinic.

On-site HIV specialized pharmacists, ARNPs, social work and medical case managers, behavioral health specialists, and community outreach personnel complement the core clinical staff in serving the 1,469 patients living with HIV. Clinic staff are members of the Broward County Health Planning Council and are recognized as community leaders at local and regional levels.

In 2018, the Memorial Division of Infectious Disease became South Florida’s first National Committee of Quality Assurance (NCQA) recognized Level 3 Patient Centered Specialty Practice (PCSP), the highest recognition that awarded to specialty practices that excel in delivering high-quality, patient-centered care. The qualifications for this title include having streamlined referral processes and care coordination with referring clinicians, timely patient and caregiver-focused care management, and continuous clinical quality improvement.