Overview of Program

Allergy & Immunology Fellowship Training

The Allergy and Immunology Fellowship at Boston Medical Center was founded in 1995 to train future Allergy and Immunology academicians, basic and clinical scientists who are well prepared to meet the demands of medical and academic practice as it evolves in the 21st century. The training program is integrated into the teaching and research environment of the Section of Pulmonary, Allergy, Sleep and Critical Care Medicine at Boston Medical Center (BMC) to take advantage of its well-established research programs in immunology, outcomes research, and asthma epidemiology, as well as the outstanding opportunities for clinical training afforded by BMC. BMC was formed 25 years ago as a merger of Boston City Hospital and Boston University Medical Center. It is a highly successful single-site hybrid entity combining a tertiary university-based medical center with an urban medical center that delivers care to the underserved populations of the Boston area. Fellows spend time in various outpatient adult and pediatric venues, as well as the inpatient adult and pediatric inpatient consultation services. Because of important clinical and research overlaps between Pulmonary Medicine and Allergy & Immunology, we feel that the close association of these programs will lead to synergistic approaches to research and to disease management. In fact, several of our trainees have completed training in Pulmonary and Critical Care prior to their Allergy & Immunology training.

Fellows will spend 2 years completing their Allergy and Immunology training. With the expansion of clinical faculty and fellowship in 2018, we reconfigured our training experience for a more clinically intense first year and a second year with more protected time for scholarly activity. Trainees with a strong commitment to research who garner F32 funding, applied for in the fall of Year 2, will spend a 3rd year exclusively dedicated to research. Continuity clinics are done at BMC and include a 2-year continuity experience in Adult Allergy Clinics including procedures and a 1 year rotation in Pediatric Allergy Immunology and Respiratory (AIR) Clinics. First Year fellows also attend a weekly ½ day Allergy Clinic at the West Roxbury Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Inpatient consultations are performed in Adult and Pediatric Allergy & Immunology throughout clinical training, concentrated in the first year. On average, this leaves 2.5 days a week for research and/or independent scholarly activity in the first 2 years, with that time concentrated in the second year.

At the outset of the first year, fellows will attend a city-wide fellows’ Core Curriculum on basic and clinical aspects of Allergy/Immunology. This is an opportunity for immersion to varied topics in A/I and network with fellows in other Boston A/I programs. Mid-way through Year 1, with the help of the core faculty and an adviser, fellows meet with Pulmonary/Allergy faculty to devise a research project. With the evolving ACGME focus on Fellow training in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety (CLER), trainees will leverage the ample resources at BMC to initiate and execute a feasible, well circumscribed QI/PS project.

At the end of training, a fellow will be extraordinarily well-prepared to enter the job market in academic medicine, whether as a researcher or clinician educator.

Clinical Allergy Faculty:

  • Frederic Little, MD, Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine, Program Director, Allergy/Immunology Fellowship
  • Quindelyn Cook MD, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Associate Program Director for Education, Allergy/Immunology Fellowship; Associate Program Director, Boston Combined Residency Program in Pediatrics (BCRP – Boston Medical Center/Boston Children’s Hospital)
  • David Center, MD, Professor of Medicine and Section Chief, Pulmonary, Allergy, Sleep, and Critical Care Medicine; Principal Investigator, Boston University Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI)
  • Karissa Brazauskas, MD, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics; Division Chief, Pediatric Pulmonary and Allergy/Immunology
  • John Bernardo, MD, Professor of Medicine
  • Robyn Cohen, MD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics
  • Praveen Govender, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine
  • Christina Lam, MD, Assistant Professor of Dermatology; Medical Director, Dermatology Clinics, BMC
  • Margaret Lee, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Dermatology; Director of Pediatric Dermatology
  • Paul Maglione, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine
  • Alan Nguyen, MD Instructor in Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School (BMC/Boston Children’s Hospital)
  • George O’Connor, MD, Professor of Medicine, Co-PI BU Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI)
  • Michael Platt, MD, Associate Professor of Otolaryngology; Program Director, Otolaryngology Residency Program
  • David Sloane, MD, Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School (WRVAMC)