Infectious Disease Fellowship Program at MedStar Georgetown

The MedStar Health - Georgetown University Hospital Fellowship Program in Infectious Diseases

Why train here

For the 2026 academic year, the Infectious Disease fellowship programs at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital and MedStar Washington Hospital Center are integrating to form the MedStar Health Georgetown University Program in Infectious Disease. This expanded, two-year ACGME-accredited program leverages the strengths of both institutions, with an expanded recruitment of three fellows per year.

Broad and In-Depth Training with State of the Art Resources

MedStar Health is the largest healthcare provider in the Maryland and Washington, D.C., region, encompassing 10 hospitals and the MedStar Health Research Institute. Our fellows receive intensive training on the inpatient consult service, which takes place primarily at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital with over 600 inpatient beds and 1300 physicians.

Medstar Washington Hospital Center is well known nationally for several major programs, especially in cardiology/heart surgery, trauma/burn care, and complex tertiary referral care. Its consistently ranked among the top heart programs in the country by U.S. News & World Report and considered one of the premier cardiovascular centers in the Mid-Atlantic. It has one of the region’s major adult Level 1 trauma centers, and areas only adult Burn Center. Notable for comprehensive stroke care and advanced neurocritical care program. Transplant and complex referral medicine through the MedStar-Georgetown partnership.

As the tertiary care facility for all of MedStar, Georgetown University Hospital provides care for a diverse and complicated range of patients. Ranked as one of the region’s best hospitals by U.S. News & World Report, Georgetown Hospital services span all fields, with centers of excellence in Transplant, Oncology, Gastroenterology, Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Orthopedics. In December 2023, the much-anticipated Verstandig Pavilion opened, with state-of-the-art facilities, including new intensive care units, operating rooms, and emergency department.

A look at the Verstandig Pavillion

Integrated Training Experience (Starting 2026)

• Expansion: The program will integrate rotations at the 912-bed MedStar Washington Hospital Center - the largest in the region, providing a broader exposure to complex, high-acuity cases.
• Inpatient Rotations: First and second-year fellows will complete six-week, in-depth rotations on the inpatient Infectious Diseases service at MedStar Washington Hospital Center, focusing on advanced heart failure, cardiac transplant, and device-related infections.
• Key Sites: Clinical rotations occur across D.C. hospital sites, with primary teaching at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, which now features the new Verstandig Pavilion with 156 private rooms, 31 ORs, and a new emergency department.
  
  

Ambulatory & Specialized Care

• Fellows gain extensive ambulatory experience, particularly at the MedStar Health Infectious Diseases outpatient clinic at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, which manages care for over 900 people living with HIV. Specialized outpatient training includes:
• Hepatitis B and C clinics.
• Solid organ transplant infection management.
• Tropical medicine and general outpatient ID.
• Specialized training in HIV-STI care, home infusion services, and treatment adherence counseling.
• Ryan White Program
• Advanced Training: Exposure to the Heart and Vascular Institute for complex device-related infections.
• Trauma & Burn Care: Experience in the Level I Trauma Center and the only adult Burn Center in the region.
• Disaster Preparedness: Training in a designated Ebola Treatment Center.
• Global Health: An optional Global Health Equity Track is available, offering a curriculum in ethics, policy, and tropical diseases, including international electives.
  
  

Unique Opportunities

In 2024, we introduced a concentrated Transplant Infectious Diseases track . Participants’ schedules are tailored to more dedicated clinical time in both inpatient and outpatient Transplant ID, with mentoring and guidance through a capstone research project. Please contact Dr. Rebecca Kumar for more information: Rebecca.N.Kumar@gunet.georgetown.edu."

Our fellows are also eligible to join the Georgetown Department of Medicine’s well-established Global Health Equity Track. Participants are trained in global health, ethics, law, policy, and tropical diseases through a longitudinal curriculum, elective rotations, and domestic and international electives. For fellows interested in Global Health and Public Policy, research collaboration with faculty at Georgetown’s premiere Global Health Institute is a unique opportunity.

Our division enjoys a close working partnership with the National Institute of Health’s Infectious Diseases clinical team. Medstar Health - Georgetown ID fellows have the option to spend an elective month at the NIH on the consultation service, one week at the NIH microbiology course, and participate in a weekly, interactive, virtual, inter-city conference. The NIH ID fellows also rotate in turn, for several months at Georgetown on our inpatient service.

Fellows are instrumental teachers for the Georgetown School of Medicine students and Internal Medicine residents, during clinical rotations and through the resident didactics series. In addition, our fellows are full voting members on the MedStar Georgetown Hospital Infection Prevention Committee and Antibiotic Utilization Committee, gaining valuable experience in infection prevention practices and policies, outbreak investigation, antibiotic stewardship, and selection of antimicrobials for the hospital formulary.

Program Leadership

Program Director: Dr. Gayle Balba
Associate Program Director: Dr. Sharmila Mohanraj and Dr. Matthew Copeland
Site Director MedStar Washington Hospital Center: Dr. Saumil Doshi
Site Director NIH: Dr. Christa Zerbe

Competitive Benefits

The MedStar Georgetown GME program offers competitive stipends and a wide range of benefits, including health benefits, retirement plan and employee assistance program. Please visit MedStar GME Salary and Benefits  offered by MedStar Health.

Please note: Georgetown University Hospital constantly seeks to improve employee benefits, all benefits are subject to change.

Outstanding Location

Finally, being situated in our nation’s capital, our fellows are able to enjoy all that Washington D.C. has to offer– our National Mall and historic monuments, a vast network of parks and trails, the incomparable Smithsonian museums, world-class dining, theater and concerts, and much more.

We hope this gives you an overview of what makes our program an outstanding and special place to train. But the most important part of any program is the people. Please take a look at this video from some of our faculty, to hear more about the program in our own voices!

Curriculum

MedStar Georgetown Inpatient Consult Service

The Inpatient Consult Service is a thriving service, split into four separate teams:

• Transplant/Immunocompromised Service
• ICU and General Infectious Diseases Service
• Musculoskeletal Service
• Attending only Service

There is one attending with 1-2 fellows on both the Transplant/Immunocompromised service and the ICU/General service, often also with rotating residents and students. Each inpatient service census typically averages 12-20 patients, with a maximum cap of 15 follow-up patients and 5 new consults per fellow. All patients followed in the Infectious Diseases clinic that require inpatient care are admitted and covered through the Hospital Medicine service.

Fellows will rotate with one attending on the Musculoskeletal service for 4-8 weeks per year. This service provides care for patients undergoing limb salvage and other infectious diseases associated with plastic surgery and orthopedic surgery. Fellows also may choose to rotate through the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases inpatient consult service and gain valuable experience with infectious complications in complex bone marrow transplant recipients on clinical trials.

Through these inpatient rotations, fellows will gain expertise in diagnosing and treating infections in the following areas:

• Critical Care
• General Medicine
• HIV
• Surgery (Solid organ transplant, Neurosurgery, General, Otolaryngology, Orthopedics, Plastics, Urology)
• Bone marrow transplant
• Hematology/Oncology
• Obstetrics & Gynecology
  
  

MedStar Georgetown Outpatient Clinic

Our fellows have several months dedicated solely to outpatient Infectious Diseases care. During these blocks, fellows become expert in the treatment of the following areas:

• General infectious diseases
• Solid organ transplant (pre-transplant evaluation, post transplant infections)
• Travel medicine
• Tropical medicine
• STI/PrEP/PEP
• Viral hepatitis
• Employee Health/Occupational Exposures

Additionally, each fellow holds a weekly half-day continuity clinic, with an emphasis on HIV management, throughout all of fellowship training (unless on an away rotation). Fellows participating in the transplant track may focus their continuity clinic on transplant patients, in their second year of fellowship. The outpatient experience is supported by a comprehensive support staff that includes a dedicated nursing staff, social worker, treatment adherence specialist and specialty pharmacy liaisons.

Rotations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center

For the 2026 academic year, we are expanding our recruitment to three fellows per year. Starting in 2026, both first and second year fellows will be scheduled for six weeks of rotation on the inpatient Infectious Diseases service. There they will be exposed to a diverse range of general and immuno-compromised cases, with a particular emphasis on patients with advanced heart failure, cardiac transplant and device infections. Washington Hospital Center is a level 1 trauma center and boasts the MedStar Heart and Vascular Institute with a world-renowned advanced heart failure program. The fellow will see patients with infectious issues on the advanced heart failure, left ventricular device, heart transplant, and kidney transplant services. Fellows will also see patients with orthopedic hardware infections, both on the general orthopedic and orthopedic oncology services. This is an opportunity to work closely and learn with our cardiology and orthopedic colleagues and provide comprehensive, interdisciplinary care to patients.

Didactics

Clinical learning is complemented by structured didactics as detailed above. The core curriculum series is held 3x per month and mostly given by internal faculty, with occasional guest speakers. Our weekly inter-city virtual conference with the NIH is a program highlight. Infection Prevention is a hospital wide meeting convened quarterly. Monthly meetings are held for Journal Club, State of the Art (in depth ID talks), Antibiotic Utilization Committee and the Greater Washington ID Society (GWIDS) presentations. GWIDS is a city-wide conference for all ID programs and the fellows’ capstone case presentation; Georgetown fellows typically present in April.

In addition to structured didactics, fellows, of course, pursue independent learning on their own, spurred by the cases they see. To support this, we provide access to the following resources:

• Dahlgren Memorial Library (The Graduate Health & Life Sciences Research Library at Georgetown University Medical Center)
  • Offers expert medical librarian support
  • Can be accessed from home. Electronic resources consist of over 6302 journals, 142 databases including PubMed, 18 point of care tools, 20 medical apps, 4,806 online books
• Access to PubMed
• Access to UpToDate
• IDSA membership which includes access to the Journal of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Infectious Diseases