Diabetes Fellowship Program

The University Medical Center is the primary teaching hospital for our fellowship program. The 790-bed, tertiary care university hospital and research center is comprised of four major hospital facilities (University Hospital, Shawn Jenkins Children's Hospital, Ashley River Tower, and the Institute of Psychiatry) and an NCI-designated cancer center, MUSC Hollings Cancer Center. University Medical Center is also home to South Carolina's only solid organ transplant center, the Level I Trauma Center, as well as one of only two National Telehealth Centers of Excellence.

Consultation Services: Our fellows participate in the Inpatient Diabetes Management Service (DMS) that provides concurrent care for the management of adult, inpatient hyperglycemia as part of a team approach to optimized care. DMS includes services such as cardiovascular, transplant, trauma, burn, pregnancy, digestive and liver, cancer, addiction, and other services. DMS also provides consultative diabetes care to all adult inpatient services on request. DMS is available 24 hours a day year-round. The Diabetes Fellow will participate in the consult service Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm for 16 weeks during the fellowship.

Intensive Diabetes Education, Awareness, and Lifestyle (IDEAL) Program: In this program, fellows work closely with faculty, MSN-CDE nurse educators, and nutritionists to master the care of type 1 and type 2 diabetics. Hybrid closed-loop intensive insulin pump therapy, continuous glucose monitoring (CGM), and other intensive insulin therapy regimens are initiated and managed in this clinic, together with state-of-the-art surveillance programs for diabetic complications and risk factors. The IDEAL program was patterned after the NIH-NIDDK funded Diabetes Control and Complications Trial/Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications Study (DCCT/EDIC). MUSC is one of 27 medical centers in the US and Canada who are currently participating in EDIC.

Our fellows are assigned an average of 16 weeks per year in elective rotation. Required elective rotations are as follows: Fellow Continuity Clinic, Diabetes in Pregnancy Clinic, Lipid Clinic, Obesity Clinic, and Telemedicine Outreach Clinic.

Optional electives are: Pediatric Endocrinology, Pre-Operative Diabetes Clinic, Post-Transplant Clinic, Podiatry Clinic, Ophthalmology Clinic, Neurology Clinic and Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) Clinic.

Introduction to Clinical Endocrinology: This series is held weekly during July and August, replacing Endocrine Grand Rounds for the first 8 to 10 sessions. The lecture content is specific to endocrine subspecialty fellows, although pediatric endocrinology and internal medicine residents, medical students, and clinical faculty are encouraged to attend. Didactic lectures covering basic aspects of the clinical management of endocrine diseases are presented by clinical faculty in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases to provide new subspecialty fellows with the basic information necessary to transition smoothly from medicine resident to endocrine fellow. Diabetes fellows are required to attend only those associated with diabetes, lipids, and obesity. All other conferences are optional to the fellow.

Endocrine Grand Rounds: This conference is held weekly throughout the academic year and is attended by all subspecialty fellows, and clinical teaching faculty, including pediatric, reproductive endocrinology, and endocrine surgery. Faculty and trainees from other collaborating services, e.g. Pathology, Nuclear Medicine, Neurosurgery, and Ophthalmology are routinely invited and often attend to participate and present data, pathological material, radiology studies, etc. It is a CME-accredited conference. Cases for this conference are selected to be particularly illustrative, unusual in presentation or response to treatment, or demonstrate a diagnostic challenge. Diabetes fellows are required to attend only those associated with diabetes, lipids, and obesity. All other conferences are optional.

Journal Club: This literature review conference is held monthly. All teaching faculty attend. Emphasis is placed on learning to critically analyze literature, focusing on selected key articles from subspecialty and general medical journals.

Research Conference/Project: This conference occurs quarterly. Faculty, senior endocrine fellows, or guest faculty from other departments or institutions are invited to present their research in an hour-long seminar format. It is a CME-accredited conference and helps to provide cross fertilization and generates collaborative efforts between investigators. Visiting Professors are often invited to speak at this conference, and often participate in Endocrine Grand Rounds as well.

Quality Improvement (QI) or a Research Project is strongly encouraged for the diabetes fellow.