Cover Letter
Case presentations are always a popular part of the Pediatric Fellows’ Day workshop! We are excited to consider interesting pediatric cases from medical students, pediatric residents, pediatric infectious diseases fellows, and trainees in combined programs including one of the above. Please pay careful attention to the instructions that follow and be sure to read the helpful tips on what makes a great case.
All submitting/presenting authors must complete and submit a signed cover letter stating:
- That the submitter/presenter is enrolled as a fellow in an ID training program or as a pediatric resident or medical student;
- The case has not been published and will not be published prior to Fellows’ Day;
- That no confidential patient information is revealed (see HIPAA Regulations and list of 18 identifiers that must be removed);
- That if the case includes an image of a physical finding, a signed consent form from the patient or legal guardian has been obtained and is on file;
- That the case includes the affiliations of all the contributing authors;
- The units and reference ranges for all laboratory tests are specified.
*All authors must sign the cover letter. If case submissions are found not to be HIPAA compliant, they will be automatically rejected without the option to edit or amend.
Also, trainees selected to present their case in the past will not be selected in a subsequent year. If you have submitted a case in the past that was not selected, you are welcome to submit again the following year.
Images
Each submitted case should include images that illustrate important teaching points related to pediatric infectious diseases. We are looking for cases that illustrate an unusual presentation of a common disease, as well as those that highlight a common presentation of a rare disease. Cases that highlight the infectious complication of an immune deficiency will also be considered.
Categories
For pediatric case submissions, selecting a specific category is not required. However, it is unlikely that a case with the same diagnosis as a recent case will be selected. Below are final diagnoses for cases presented at the last two Pediatric Fellows’ Day workshops.
- Bartonella quintana endocarditis
- LCMV infection
- Balamuthia mandrillaris
- Brucella melitensis septic arthritis
- Dengue fever with secondary HLH
- Disseminated coccidioidomycosis with osteo and wound myiasis
- Listeria meningitis
- Neuroschistosomiasis
- Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome
- M.chelonae infection
- Nocardia septic arthritis
Checklist
Each submission must include:
- Online attestation that the case report and images are in compliance with HIPAA Privacy Regulations and do not contain identifiable patient information;
- A signed and scanned copy of the cover letter with all contributors’ signatures (Download the cover letter form template.)
- All author information and conflict of interest disclosures;
- A case presentation file in the PIDS template; (Download the Pediatric Case PowerPoint Template.)
- **IMPORTANT** Submissions must use the Pediatric Case PowerPoint template provided
- **IMPORTANT** Do not include your name or affiliation in the PowerPoint
Tips
The purpose of the session is to “uncover” the thinking of experts about interesting pediatric infectious disease cases. Trainees present the case as an unknown and our panelists discuss their approach to the patient and identify areas where new research in pediatric ID is needed.
- What makes a good case for this session? The best cases are those that present an interesting differential or a diagnostic or treatment dilemma.
- Remember that the entire presentation should take no more than ten minutes. In general, five minutes is allotted for the case presentation. The case presentation should conclude with a slide that lists a thoughtful differential diagnosis. After comments from the faculty panelists, the trainees will have an additional five minutes to reveal the diagnosis and highlight teaching points. Cases with excellent images (pathology, pathogens, patient physical examination findings or radiographs) are preferred.
- It is especially important that a faculty person review the trainee’s work and help him or her create the presentation. The quality of the presentation is important. Slides with bullet points are easier to read than slides that contain paragraphs of text. Slides should be free of misspellings and grammatical errors. Please use the PowerPoint template provided above when developing your presentation.
Questions? Contact PIDS Staff.