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CLINICAL INFORMATICS FELLOWSHIP
The UC Irvine School of Medicine offers a two-year fellowship program, hosted by the Department of Emergency Medicine, which prepares the applicant for certification in the subspecialty of Clinical Informatics. By design, this fellowship is multidisciplinary with collaboration by faculty in Internal Medicine, Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Science, Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (ICTS), CHOC, and Information Services.
The UC Irvine School of Medicine, UC Irvine Medical Center, and Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at UC Irvine are seeking outstanding applicants for a two-year fellowship in Clinical Informatics (CI) at the University of California, Irvine. The program is only open to graduates of residency programs (that is, physicians who are board-certified or board-eligible) to apply to our fellowship.
What is Clinical Informatics?
"The subspecialty of all medical specialties that transforms health care by analyzing, designing, implementing, and evaluating information and communication systems to improve patient care, enhance access to care, advance individual and population health outcomes, and strengthen the clinician-patient relationship." - As defined by ACGME
Educational Experience
The fellowship goal is to create leaders in the field of Clinical Informatics with a strong background in the fundamentals of information technology, change management and process improvement. With this education, the fellow will develop the skillset needed to assess workflow needs, recommend process and technical solutions for a given challenge, and implement information technology tools to facilitate the proposed solution.
During the fellowship, the fellow will develop and implement technology-based workflow solutions, which capitalize on the core-competency of Clinical Informatics. Upon successful completion of the two-year program, fellows will be eligible for board certification in clinical informatics. The program’s educational experiences will consist of rotations, didactic sessions, an independent longitudinal research project, and ongoing practice in the fellow’s primary clinical specialty.
Fellowship Quarterly Newsletters
Mentorship
Fellows will be mentored by faculty with a diverse-range of practice styles, backgrounds and skills. Faculty interests include healthcare and informatics operations; clinical decision support and the learning healthcare system; digitizing medical education; healthcare entrepreneurship; and predictive medicine. As UCI Medical Center and CHOC are academic medical centers, fellows will also have the opportunity to teach and work with residents, medical students, and undergraduates.
Rotations
We believe that effective leadership comes from understanding, experiencing, and managing all aspects of the healthcare mission. Therefore, fellows are engaged at every level of the organization—from the front lines of clinical care and basic research to the upper echelons of management and administration.
Fellows will have dedicated monthly rotations which focus on key components/competencies of clinical informatics. As part of these rotations, the fellows will apply their bourgeoning informatics skillset on live informatics projects. Program faculty in the UC Irvine School of Medicine, UC Irvine Bren School, and Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) will provide direct feedback during fellows’ rotations. Moreover, UC Irvine and CHOC will offer fellows several health care systems with differing patient populations and electronic medical record systems to work with.
This fellowship is designed to have a highly flexible rotation structure, customized to each fellow's career objectives. Sample Block Diagram.
Didactics
All fellows are required to participate in didactic sessions that will be delivered by expert faculty and cover core curriculum, journal club, and case studies. Additionally, fellows will be expected to, among other education activities, attend clinical and research conferences.
Longitudinal Research Project
All fellows are required to conduct a longitudinal research project – chosen by the fellow and with a physician faculty member acting as mentor – during the second year of their fellowship. They will select a research question to address based upon their own career objectives and any challenges discovered during their first year rotations.
Resources to support fellow projects will be available from the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (boasting advanced educational facilities with smart classrooms, a multitude of learning studios, simulation labs, and group study/conference rooms) and UC Irvine’s onsite and online libraries up to and including Ayala Science Library, one of the largest consolidated science, technology, and medicine libraries in the nation, containing the collections and services that support research and teaching in the schools of Information and Computer Science and Medicine, among others; and the Grunigen Medical Library, including UpToDate, JAMAevidence, and other core resources.
Clinical Time
Fellows will have dedicated clinical time to practice in their primary specialty.
The Legacy
The fellowship is a joint venture between UC Irvine Medical Center, the UCI Department of Informatics, and Children’s Hospital of Orange County. Prior graduates have since become chief medical information officers, fellowship directors, and private consultants.
Successful applicants are ambitious, hard-working, collaborative learners who are committed to the vision that informatics, applied appropriately, has the power to optimize healthcare operations, decrease the astronomical costs of healthcare, and most importantly, improve the health and lives of the patients we serve.
Accreditation
The UC Irvine Clinical Informatics Fellowship received accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) in early 2017.
Faculty & Staff
Scott E. Rudkin, MD, MBA, RDMS, FAAEM, FACEP
Program Director
Clinical Director, Ambulatory and Specialty Pharmacy
Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine, School of Medicine
Email: srudkin@hs.uci.edu
Ryan O’Connell, MD, MBA
Associate Program Director
Clinical informaticist
Assistant Clinical Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, School of Medicine
Email: oconnelr@hs.uci.edu
Fellow Requirements
- Applicants must have graduated from an appropriately licensed medical school located in the United States or Canada, or from a school located elsewhere that is approved by ABPM
- Applicants must successfully complete a residency in an ABMS-participating specialty by June 2021, and must be either board-certified or board-eligible at the time of application
- Applicants should be eligible for a permanent California medical license
- Applicants do not need to have formal training in Computer Science or a related discipline
Applying
Starting late July/early August 2023, we will be accepting applications for positions beginning July 1, 2024. Applications must be submitted through the Association of American Medical Colleges' Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) as part of the July application cycle. Applications must be completed/submitted via ERAS by Friday, September 29, 2023.
Interview Information
Interviews will be offered at the end of October/early November 2023.
Interview Days with faculty*:
- October 24th at 3PM – 5PM PST
- October 25th at 2:30PM – 5PM PST
Interview Days with fellows*:
- November 6th at 3PM – 5:30PM PST
- November 7th at 4PM – 5:30PM PST
*All dates and times are subject to change.
Match Day
The UC Irvine Clinical Informatics Fellowship participates in ‘Match Day,’ which is typically hosted during the second week of December 2023 (date to be announced) through the AMIA-hosted match process. See AMIA website regarding details and information.
Interview Season
All interviews must be held remotely, even if the candidate lives locally. This policy is in alignment with guidance provided by the Coalition for Physician Accountability, which is composed of key national medical educational stakeholders, such as the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), LCME, AAMC, AMA and the ACGME.
The UC Irvine School of Medicine is supportive of this approach, because we must take into consideration the safety and well-being of applicants, physical restrictions and financial barriers to travel, and shifting shelter-in-place orders. To promote an equitable selection process, all applicants should have the same.
In-Person Visits
The University of California Graduate Medical Education (GME) Offices and UC Irvine Clinical Informatics Fellowship Program support the 2023 Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) interview guidance for the 2023-2024 recruitment cycle.
“The AAMC recommends that residency and fellowship programs use a virtual interview format. Reducing the cost of interviewing is a critical step in widening access and improving equity. In addition, initial, specialty-specific studies indicate that applicants prefer virtual interviews and virtual interviewing is consistent with the commitment academic medicine has made to reduce our environmental impact.”
To promote an equitable and transparent selection program, the UC GME Offices and UC Irvine Clinical Informatics Fellowship Program support the AAMC recommendation to use a virtual interview format for the 2023-2024 recruitment season.
- All University of California medical residency and fellowship programs that function under the Office of GME must conduct only virtual interviews for all selected applicants during the 2023 - 2024 academic year.
- Any in-person visits or “second looks” may be completed only after the program completes all virtual interviews and “locks” the rank order list (ROL). Even if the “locking” option is not yet offered by the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) or other online system used for the trainee selection process, the program must still make all efforts to comply. Rank order lists should not be altered after any applicants’ in-person visits.
- Applicants will not be required to travel. In-person visits will not influence the programs’ rank order lists.
- Hybrid interviewing (combination of virtual and in-person interviews in the same year or program) is not permitted, because of the risk of inequities resulting from applicants’ different resources and abilities to visit in person.
- Programs must share their interview process with applicants as early as possible in the selection cycle to minimize applicant stress and optimize transparency.
Questions or Comments
If you have any inquiries, please email soniaep@uci.edu.
