UT Southwestern Medical Center's pediatric Infectious Disease Division was established in the early 1960s and has grown from one physician to include multiple physician members, fellows, research technicians and research coordinators. The division provides infectious disease consultations for Children’s Medical Center Dallas, which admits more than 9,000 inpatients yearly, and for Parkland Health & Hospital System.

The division treats infectious diseases such as:

• Bacterial meningitis
• Respiratory infections
• HIV/AIDS
• Neonatal infections
• Child pneumonia

The medical center’s research — which often leads to new and innovative treatments that can be applied directly to pediatric infectious disease patients — involves topics such as the clinical pharmacology, efficacy and safety of antimicrobial agents, the pathogenesis of meningeal and respiratory infections, the link between pulmonary infection and asthma, HIV/AIDS immunogenicity and the effect of vaccines.

Pediatric infectious disease physicians at UT Southwestern also provide consultation for hospitalized and ambulatory patients with infectious disease management problems.