Fellowship programs

Establishment of new fields of education:

1) Fellowship of Intensive care unit: Intensive care unit is one of the most important and critical units of each hospital and usually anesthesiologists are in charge of the unit. But considering the complicated responsibilities of this subspecialty field, training physicians especially for the purpose is essential.

2) MPH courses in tobacco control:
This course is considered a supplementary branch of medicine with multiple aspects considering diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of tobacco consumption. The main aim of this course is to educate physicians with knowledge, attitude, practice and capability of proper utilization of preventive, diagnostic, and treatment measures in controlling tobacco problems.
Global campaign against tobacco use has started since 1960 and in 1986 WHO published the harm of tobacco smoke on passive smokers. International union against tuberculosis and lung diseases which is composed of associations and those who are interested in prevention and control of tuberculosis, established a unit entitled prevention of tobacco consumption , and this subject has been taught in medical universities through out the world ever since.
In Iran the first tobacco cessation clinic was established in 1997 by Tobacco Control unit of NRITLD. Till then no such course was proposed to the medical universities for the purpose of educating physicians.
Considering the fact that tobacco consumption is the leading preventable cause of mortality in the world and cigarette smoking is the most common and lethal form of tobacco consumption, the need for educated physicians for the purpose of helping in tobacco cessation seems mandatory. Therefore, due to previous experiences, physicians are considered the most ideal options for helping tobacco cessation.
According to the following, establishing tobacco cessation courses for physicians in medical universities seem mandatory:

1) Health impacts of tobacco.
2) Tobacco related diseases.
3) Effects of tobacco on environment health.
4) Prevalence of tobacco consumption throughout the country.
5) Tobacco related costs throughout the country.
6) Advantages of cessation in smokers.
7) Introducing new job opportunities in this field.

3) Fellowship in tuberculosis and respiratory diseases:
This course is a branch of medicine with multiple points of view considering diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of tuberculosis and lung infection in patients with intact and suppressed immunity.
The main aim of this course is to educate physicians with the knowledge, attitude, and practice of utilizing appropriate diagnostic and treatment methods for controlling patients with tuberculosis and respiratory infections. The prerequisite for this course is having one of the following specialties: infectious diseases, internal medicine, social medicine in order of importance.
All fellows of this field should have the following knowledge at the end of the course:
1) History of tuberculosis.
2) Management of tuberculosis and respiratory infection wards.
3) General principle of tuberculosis and respiratory infection health care.
4) Advanced methodology.
5) Epidemiology of tuberculosis in countries of region and world.
6) Epidemiology of TB /HIV /MDR-TB.
7) Epidemiology of upper and lower respiratory tract infection in patients with intact immunity, HIV+ patients and patients had undergone transplantation.

4) PHD in mycobacteriology:
During the recent years considerable advances have been made regarding laboratory diagnosis of tuberculosis, detection and classification of various mycobacteria of the environment, advent of new and rapid methods for diagnosing drug sensitivity and differentiating them. But unfortunately in spite of all these advances tuberculosis is still considered one of major health problems of most countries including Iran. At the time being, one third of the world's population is infected with M. tuberculosis and TB is the second leading cause of mortality and morbidity in adults. Also this disease is responsible for approximately 2 million deaths annually and success of National Tuberculosis Control Program is being threatened by immergence of new multiple drug resistant forms of M.TB.
Recent researches have revealed that the incidence of new multiple drug resistant TB cases are 21500 cases each year and that they make up 3.5%  of all new cases of tuberculosis. Therefore programming for tuberculosis control requires the knowledge of production and distribution of these new species which in fact needs educating specialized personnel for the purpose.
Therefore establishment of the course entitled PHD in mycobacteriology can fulfill this goal. This course is being designed and programmed in this center.

5) Fellowship in lung pathology:
Due to the extensive dimensions of the field of pathology and need for study of all diseases and pathologies of all organs, this course was established to specify pathology of respiratory tract disorders.