Infectious Disease fellowship interview questions
Infectious disease interviewers listen for careful detective work: the exposure history others missed and the culture result that changes the plan. They also want to see that you think beyond the single patient, to antibiotic stewardship, infection prevention and public health.
- A thorough exposure history
- Stewardship as a habit
- Clear advice to other teams
What infectious disease programs ask
Questions about the specialty itself, beside the ones every program asks.
A team wants to keep a patient on broad-spectrum antibiotics because they are improving, but the cultures support narrowing. What do you do?
- What they're listening for
- Whether you can practice stewardship by persuading a team rather than overruling it.
- How to answer
- Review the cultures and the clinical picture yourself, explain the case for narrowing (resistance, side effects, C. difficile) in a short, respectful conversation, and offer a clear plan with what would make you broaden again.
- Where it goes wrong
- Giving in to avoid friction, or lecturing the team.
What would you want to know about a patient admitted with fever and no clear source?
- What they're listening for
- Whether you take a thorough history before ordering more tests.
- How to answer
- Go through travel, animal and work exposures, sexual history, medications, devices and recent procedures, immune status and sick contacts. Then build a differential that includes causes that are not infections (drugs, clots, cancer, autoimmune disease).
- Where it goes wrong
- Listing tests without asking the patient a single question.
What makes an infectious disease consult recommendation useful to the team that asked for it?
- What they're listening for
- Whether you understand that a consult is only as good as how it is received.
- How to answer
- Answer the question asked, give specific recommendations with the reasoning in a sentence, say what to monitor and when you will see the patient again, and call the team when something is urgent.
- Where it goes wrong
- A long note that leaves the team unsure what to do.
How do you feel about long-term outpatient care, such as an HIV clinic?
- What they're listening for
- Whether you value the outpatient, relationship side of the field.
- How to answer
- Describe a patient or clinic you have been part of, what you learned about the barriers people face (stigma, cost, housing, transport), and how you would build trust over years.
- Where it goes wrong
- Talking about the medications and nothing about the person.
Transplant infectious disease, HIV, stewardship, infection prevention or general consult work: where do you see yourself?
- What they're listening for
- Whether you have a direction and know the range of careers in the field.
- How to answer
- Give your leaning and the experiences that shaped it, what you want from fellowship to test it, and how it would fit with general consult work.
- Where it goes wrong
- Choosing a path because it sounds interesting, with no exposure behind it.
How do you see an infectious disease physician's role in infection prevention and public health?
- What they're listening for
- Whether you think about the hospital and the community, not only the patient in front of you.
- How to answer
- Give an example you have seen (a cluster of infections on a unit, a reportable disease, vaccination work) and say how the physician worked with infection prevention, the lab or the health department.
- Where it goes wrong
- Seeing infection control as someone else's job.
The questions every program asks
Expect these too. Each is explained in full on the main questions page.
- Tell me about yourself.
- Why do you want to do a fellowship in infectious disease?
- Tell me about your research.
- Do you see yourself in academic medicine or in clinical practice?
- Tell me about a case from residency that you still think about.
- How do you like to teach residents and students?
- That's everything from me. What questions do you have for us?
Questions to ask infectious disease programs
Ask what their website doesn't answer. These show you have thought about training there.
- How do fellows take part in antibiotic stewardship and infection prevention work?
- What continuity clinic do fellows have, and do they follow the same patients throughout?
- How much exposure is there to transplant and other immunocompromised patients?
- How do fellows get support for a research or quality project in their area of interest?
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