Advanced Infectious Diseases Training Program – in Collaboration with Colorado University

The overall emphasis of this interactive, practice-based program training program is the therapeutic use of antimicrobial agents in preventing and treating infections.  The course duration is 5 days. The program incorporates pre-reading assignments, didactic lectures, interactive active learning sessions, group discussions, individual daily assignments in addition to a final assessment. 

Topics covered in the program include Review of Antimicrobial Pharmacology and Spectra of Activity; Mechanisms of Antibiotic Resistance; Principles of Antimicrobial Pharmacokinetics/Pharmacodynamics (PK/PD); PK/PD Modeling; Respiratory Tract Infections; Febrile Neutropenia and Infections in Immunocompromised Patients; Management of Fungal Infections; Gram-Positive Infections; Study Designs and Biostatistics in Infectious Diseases Clinical Trials and Principles of Antimicrobial Stewardship. Through clinical case-based scenarios, you will develop your knowledge and skills needed to optimize patient care and clinical outcomes.

The program is to develop healthcare professionals’ knowledge and skills needed to optimize patient care and clinical outcomes. The program provides provide health care professionals and students with a review of fundamental principles of infectious diseases and a more in-depth coverage of selected topics.

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of fundamental concepts and nomenclature in clinical microbiology.
• Demonstrate an understanding of in vitro susceptibility testing and apply results of these tests to the selection and therapeutic use of antimicrobial agents.
• Recognize common mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance and appropriately select or modify antimicrobial therapy to achieve improved patient outcomes.
• Demonstrate an understanding of antimicrobial PK/PD characteristics and PK/PD modeling (e.g., Monte Carlo simulation), and apply PK/PD principles to the care of individual patients with specific infectious diseases.
• Critically evaluate differences in the pharmacology, spectra of activity, PK/PD characteristics, and other important properties of antimicrobials in order to select the most appropriate agent for an individual patient with a specific infectious disease.
• Use evidence-based guidelines in conjunction with relevant patient factors to formulate or modify patient-specific medication plans for the treatment of infectious diseases.
• Demonstrate an understanding of fundamental concepts of antimicrobial stewardship and apply these concepts to the optimization of clinical and medication use outcomes in individual patients.
• Identify key elements of an antimicrobial stewardship program (ASP), and formulate plans for implementation or ongoing development of a formalized ASP within a given institution.
• Appropriately apply principles of infection prevention to the care of individual patients and institutional practices related to infectious diseases and antimicrobial use.
• Critically evaluate literature related to infectious diseases, including study design and statistical analyses common to clinical trials in infectious diseases.
• Evaluate web-based resources used to obtain information related to infectious diseases pharmacotherapy (e.g., EUCAST, CLSI M100, UptoDate)

To be announce