Infectious Diseases Clinic
The Infectious Diseases Clinic meets each business day morning on the seventh floor of Rutledge Tower at 135 Rutledge Avenue.  All Division faculty see adult patients from 8:30-12:30 one or two half days each week.  New patients should call 843-792-1414 to schedule an appointment.  Existsing patients can call 843-792-9200.  Patients are most often referred by other physicians, but may make appointments without a referral.  Self-referrals will be reviewed by the Division Physician of the Day to be certain the self-referral is appropriate.

A variety of patients are seen in the clinic, including:

 Patients with the HIV virus,
 Orthopedic hardware infections,
 Heart valve infections,
 Complex infected wounds,
 Infections requiring management of long term antimicrobial therapy,
 Travel related infections, etc.

Patients are seen by a faculty member (i.e., attending physician), sometimes with the assistance of a physician in training to be an infectious diseases physician.  HIV infected patients may be under the care of an infectious diseases physicians assistant (PA).

The Infectious Diseases Division also staffs an infectious diseases clinic at the Ralph H. Johnson VA Hospital at 109 Bee Street.

Infected Solid Organ Transplant Patient Clinic
A separate half-day clinic at the Rutledge Tower facility is specifically for infected solid organ transplant patients.  The attending for this clinic is Dr. Dan Wray.  New patients should call 843-792-1414 to schedule an appointment at this clinic.  Existing patients can call 843-792-9200.

Travel Clinics
Travel Clinics are also staffed by the Infectious Disease Division faculty and Physicians Assistants.  The travel clinics provide comprehensive assessment and guidance for travel to locations where exotic infectious diseases occur.  There are two locations for the Travel Clinic, and full repertoire of usual and travel related vaccines are available at both sites:

Goose Creek Travel Clinic, 98 Hamlet Circle
8:30-12:00 every Tuesday

East Cooper Travel Clinic, 1280 Johnnie Dodds Blvd.
8:30 to 3:30 every Thursday. 

In collaboration with the Department of Pediatrics, Dr. Andrea Summer, a pediatrician with special training in Tropical (Travel) medicine is available at the Rutledge Tower facility at 135 Rutledge Avenue to see families traveling with children as well as children being brought to the US for adoption.  This clinic meets on Thursday afternoon.

Inpatient Consults
Division faculty see inpatient consults for all adult inpatient services at Medical University Hospital, Kindred Specialty Hospital and the Ralph H. Johnson Veterans Administration Hospital.  Infectious Diseases clinic patients are admitted to the Medical University Hospital Hospitalist Service.  Once admitted, the patient is followed by the Infectious Diseases consult team.  Infected solid organ transplant patients are seen in consult by Dr. Dan Wray, the Infectious Diseases transplant physician.

Peripherally Inserted Central Venous Lines
Infectious Diseases is not a procedure-oriented specialty, but in a departure from the usual infectious diseases services, the Division has, for 16 years, placed peripherally inserted central venous lines for use in long term antimicrobial therapy, TPN, chemotherapy, pain management and for patients for whom venous access is difficult, such as the massively obese (up to 1000 pounds).  The Division currently places more than 800 such lines a year, using innovative techniques, ultrasound and fluoroscopy.  The size and type of catheter is tailored to the patient’s needs in consultation with the patient’s physician.

This service is available to outpatients and inpatients.  The procedure may be scheduled by paging Brad Kilpatrick at 792-2300 pager# 1-1393, or by calling the Bronchoscopy/PICC suite at 792-9071.  The current Infectious Diseases PICC Line schedule is 8:30 am to 4:30 pm, Monday through Friday.