Program Info

Description of Program

The Division of Infectious Diseases is responsible for the delivery of subspecialty care in infectious diseases for the Edmonton Zone, the Northern half of Alberta, and the Western Northwest Territories. The Division is also responsible for education in Infectious diseases to medical students, internal medicine residents, infectious diseases residents, medical microbiology residents, practicing physicians and other health care professionals. Division members are active in basic, epidemiologic and clinical research.. In addition, Division members have a wide variety of administrative responsibilities.

The Division maintains close interaction with the Division of Infectious Diseases of the Department of Pediatrics, the Provincial Laboratory of Northern Alberta, the Medical Microbiology Laboratories of both UAH and Dynalife Medical Laboratories, and with Public Health.

The postgraduate training program in Infectious Diseases is a 2-year program after completing three core years in Medicine. 

Inpatient Consultation Services

The Division offers five inpatient consultation services. Two serve the University of Alberta Hospital (one general ID service and one transplant ID service which serves the Cross Cancer Institute). A third service operates at the Royal Alexandra Hospital and the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital. The fourth and fifth services are at the Grey Nun’s Hospital and Misericordia Hospital respectively.

Transplant Infectious Diseases

Dr. Dima Kibbani provides inpatient and outpatient ID support to all of the transplant pre-transplant evaluation as well as the prevention and treatment of infectious complications post-transplant.

OPAT Services

The Division operates two outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT) clinics, one at RAH and the other at UAH, 7 days per week.

Hepatitis Program

Dr. Karen Doucette is the consultant for Viral Hepatitis. This is a two-week, outpatient, preceptor-based rotation supplemented by independent case reviews and interactive one-on-one teaching. The goals are to expand the resident’s knowledge regarding diagnosis, clinical presentation, natural history, and management of hepatitis B and C, as well as the importance and role of the multidisciplinary team in the care of patients with viral hepatitis.

HIV Program

The Division operates the Northern Alberta HIV Program, which provides service to HIV-infected patients in Northern Alberta and the Western Northwest Territories. The program follows approximately 1400 HIV-infected individuals and operates multi-disciplinary clinics out of the RAH and UAH sites.

Tuberculosis Program

Four of the physicians providing tuberculosis care in Northern Alberta are members of the Division of Infectious Diseases and include  Dr. Rabia Ahmed, Dr. Dennis Kunimoto, Dr. Shannon Turvey, and Dr. Ryan Cooper, who is also the Director of the Edmonton TB Clinic. The TB service also operates a dedicated inpatient unit, including negative airway pressure rooms. These physicians also provide in-patient consultation services to patients on other wards. They also conduct several out-patient TB clinics per week.

Travel Medicine

Dr. Houston is the consultant in travel medicine to the Northern Alberta Region. The Division has arranged a mechanism whereby febrile returning travelers from third world countries who are screened through the

Edmonton Travel Clinic can be "fast-tracked" to an ID consultant. Dr. Saxinger also has an interest in Travel and Tropical Medicine and completed the American Society of Tropical Medicine of Hygiene Certification.

General Infectious Diseases Clinics

These include clinics in general infectious diseases, travel medicine, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV, transplant ID, and hepatitis as well as an outpatient IV therapy clinic. This is a longitudinal clinic that occurs on a biweekly or weekly basis throughout training.

Infection Control

Dr. Stephanie Smith is the Infection Control Officer at UAH and consultants to the W.W. Cross Cancer Institute. A minimum of one month exposure to hospital infection control is part of training with an opportunity for research.

Dr. Uma Chandran is the Infection Control Officer for RAH, and Dr. Alexandra McFarlane is the Infection Control Officer for Covenant Health sites.

STI Clinics

The sexually transmitted infections clinic is located at the Edmonton General Hospital. It is run primarily by nurses with oversight by Dr. Ami Singh and Dr. Petra Smyczek.

Antimicrobial Stewardship

Dr. Holly Hoang is the consultant for this two-week elective and is an interdisciplinary activity that promotes appropriate selection, dosing, route and duration of antimicrobial therapy in order to optimize patient clinical outcomes, minimize antibiotic adverse effects, reduce the selection of pathogenic organisms (e.g. C. difficile) and reduce or stabilize antimicrobial resistance.

The Division operates clinics for the management of HIV and hepatitis C at the Edmonton Institution, the Edmonton Institution for Women, and the Fort Saskatchewan Correctional Centre.

Questions or concerns? Contact the Medical Education Program Coordinator at mednid@ualberta.ca.