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Professional education

tox fellows learning

The Virginia Poison Center and Virginia Toxicology Consultants provide professional education to Virginia Commonwealth University resident housestaff, medical students, and pharmacy residents and students.

We engage in daily poison center rounds and bedside rounds to apply didactic learning to clinically poisoned patients. Our toxicologists are actively involved in emergency medical services education, pre-hospital care, disaster response and hazardous materials education.

The principles of medical toxicology are imparted through a robust program of didactics, research, clinical consultations and daily patient care rounds.

Medical toxicology fellowship

Our two-year medical toxicology fellowship is a nationally accredited subspecialty training program that leads to board eligibility in medical toxicology. We offer the fellowship as part of the VCU Department of Emergency Medicine’s Division of Clinical Toxicology.

Fellows provide supervised medical consultation in overdose cases, participate in quality assurance activities and participate in developing poison triage and treatment guidelines for our poison information specialists. They also participate in public education activities and serve as invited speakers at regional and state events about topics such as pharmaceutical overdose, antidotes, or chemicals in the home or workplace.

For more details, click here.

Medical toxicology rotation

The center offers two- to four-week medical toxicology rotations for senior medical and pharmacy students, and for resident physicians specializing in emergency medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, combined emergency medicine/internal medicine, combined internal medicine/pediatrics, psychiatry and pathology.

The rotation provides exposure to the role of poison centers and clinical toxicologists in both clinical care and public health. Participants join in didactic and group discussions based on patient cases. Discussions are used to provide specific treatment recommendations and to facilitate in-depth analysis of the toxicology of drugs and toxins.

For more information about educational opportunities in the poison center, please email Dr. Kirk Cumpston at kirk.cumpston@vcuhealth.org.