Fellows Survival Guide

A large part of training as a fellow is gaining a fund of knowledge, and also knowing the references to rely on to increase your fund of knowledge. Many obscure questions will come your way and knowing how to quickly access specialized references will also help you succeed clinically.

• The Red Book: The Red Book is a good starting point for looking things up. If you are a member of the AAP, you will receive access to the online version as well as the mobile versions as a member benefit. If you want the hard copy version, you can order it through the AAP website.
• Antibiotic Guides: Sanford Guide (app available), Nelson’s Pediatric Antimicrobial Therapy, and NeoFax are all worth looking through and deciding which is best for your workflow.
• Nelson’s Pediatric Antimicrobial Therapy: The Nelson’s Pediatric Antimicrobial Therapy Book provides instant access to reliable, up-to-the-minute recommendations for treatment of all infectious diseases in children. Access is available through the AAP website.

Textbooks: Many people like to own a copy of the major texts, and many provide online access depending on the publisher so that you can review topics if you are by a computer. Find out what you have access to, and consider purchasing the others.

• Principles and Practice of Pediatric Infectious Diseases
• Feigin and Cherry’s Textbook of Pediatric Infectious Diseases
• Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics
• Vaccines 
• Remington & Klein’s Infectious Diseases of the Fetus and Newborn Infant
• Tropical Infectious Diseases 
• Hurwitz Clinical Pediatric Dermatology

These references are available online:

• Antimicrobe.org: A comprehensive database of infectious diseases and antimicrobial agents, frequently updated.
• The Pink Book: Comprehensive information on vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases. You can order a copy, or download from cdc.gov
• The Yellow Book: Excellent reference for travel medicine, published every two years by the CDC.
• The Purple Book: The Vaccine Handbook: A Practical Guide for Clinicians is one of your one-stop shop for all things vaccine, from understanding basic vaccine immunology to overcoming vaccine hesitancy. Details about infrastructure, logistics, delivery, and special circumstances are laid out, and information about every licensed vaccine (and its corresponding preventable disease) are given. The book is available as a free app for iOS devices                   (https://itunes.apple/com/us/app/the-vaccine-handbook-app/id1043246009?mt=8) 

This list is just a start – if there is a specific area of infectious diseases you love, there is sure to be a reference book that can help you master it!

Online Resources:

• The Resources for Fellows webpage, maintains a number of links to access online information, including up-to-date guidelines, toolkits, and links to documents that rapidly change, such as AIDSINFO.
• cdc.gov – an incredibly comprehensive source for anything from vaccine schedules to outbreak information
• http://www.cdc.gov/learning/index.html: source of trainings in public health
• https://www.train.org/cdctrain/welcome: source for online training in public health
• http://www.cdc.gov/dpdx/: – a source for parasitic diseases
• http://www.cdc.gov/nhsn/: – the national healthcare safety network
• http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel: – a starting point for travel medicine
• http://www.cdc.gov/healthypets/: a resource for zoonotic illnesses
• http://www.shea-online.org/: the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America website. They have created an infection control online module that is available at a cost
• www.idsociety.org:- the Infectious Diseases Society of America with numerous clinical practice guidelines
• https://aidsinfo.nih.gov/: Clinicial guidelines for care of HIV infected and HIV exposed patients
• https://drfungus.org/: Great place to learn more about medical mycology
• https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/protecting_patients.html: CDC resource to combat repositories, your university library and any additional access to books that are a shared resource. If you find your institution is lacking in shared resources, start accumulating any electronic resources that can easily be passed fellow to fellow. 

Institution Specific Resources: Many institutions have internal documents that will make your clinical job easier – find out early about clinical pathways, order sets, easily available resources, journal article repositories, your university library, and any additional access to books that are a shared resources. If you find your institution is lacking in shared resources, start accumulating any electronic resources that can easily be passe fellow to fellow. 

Journals:
These journals are frequently read by most Infectious Diseases fellows and attendings, some of which come free with society memberships.

• Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (JPIDS) (included with PIDS membership)
• Clinical Infectious Diseases (CID) (included with IDSA membership)
• Journal of infectious Diseases (JID) (included with IDSA membership)
• Open Forum Infectious Diseases (OFID) (Included with IDSA membership)
• Pediatric Infectious Diseases Journal (PIDJ)
• emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) open access publication from CDC

Journals also accompany your membership to the AAP, including Pediatrics.

Of course, depending on your interests and your library’s access, many individuals choose additional journals to subscribe to – check in with mentors early on regarding what they have found most useful. Also consider establishing your own RSS feed that will pull topics of interest from numerous journals and deliver them to your mailbox through your institution’s library. Alternatively, you can flag topics you are interested through Pubmed’s “saved searches” feature which can automatically send you search results for topics on a recurring basis.

Podcasts and listservs:
There are many modern ways to find out about ID including podcasts, list-servs, and even Twitter!

• Emerging Infectious Diseases podcast
• Puscast: weekly podcast that summarizes the ID literature
• CIDRAP list-serv: provides a summary of hot topics in Infectious Diseases
• Morbidity and Mortality Weekly: publication from CDC on public health topics
• COCA webinars: webinars from CDC on public health topics
• Register for health alert networks (HAN) from your state and local health departments to keep up to date on outbreaks
• Antimicrobial Stewardship Program (ASP) list-serve: poses questions and answers for antimicrobial stewards around the country by sharing resources and ideas