Call for Cases

Submitting a case report to IDWeek will provide an opportunity to have your work reviewed by colleagues in the field of infectious diseases. It also provides an excellent opportunity for fellows in training to showcase their cases to a large audience at IDWeek.  Selected cases will be featured in one of two popular Fellows’ Day workshops (General or Adult ID training programs and another for Pediatric ID training programs). They may also be selected to present during the Challenging Cases in Infectious Diseases session on Friday, October 23, 2020. Those cases featured in the General or Adult ID Fellows’ Day workshop will also be posted on the Partners Infectious Disease Images website: www.idimages.org.

Case reports submitted in a General or Adult infectious diseases training program should be submitted for consideration in the General or Adult ID Fellows’ Day workshop or for the Challenging Cases in Infectious Disease session.  Case reports submitted in a Pediatric infectious diseases training program should be submitted for consideration in the Pediatric Fellows’ Day workshop.

Case reports of pediatric patients submitted to general infectious diseases training programs may be submitted to both workshops.  In the event that the case is selected for both workshops, the author may claim no more than one travel award.  Submitting a case to both workshops requires that the submission steps are followed for each workshop.

Fellows, residents, and med students from infectious disease training programs inside and outside of the U.S. may submit case reports for the General Adult ID Fellows’ Day workshop or for the Challenging Cases in Infectious Diseases session.  The Pediatric Workshop will also accept case submissions from fellows, residents, and medical students. For anyone submitting a case from a non-U.S. program, please pay careful attention to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations to which all U.S. program trainees must adhere.  In order to be considered for the Fellows’ Day workshops, all authors must ensure that their cases comply with these HIPAA regulations.  See HIPAA Regulations.

All submitting/presenting authors must complete and submit a cover letter and consent form stating:

• that he or she is enrolled as a fellow in an ID training program or as a resident or medical student
• the case has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere
• that no confidential patient information is revealed (see HIPAA Regulations and list of 18 identifiers that must be removed)
• Program director/faculty attending must complete and sign the attestation form. The form must be uploaded with the other files during the submission process. Please note that it is the responsibility of the primary/submitting author to provide a copy of the case presentation directly to the program director/faculty attending for review. 
• that if the case includes an image of a physical finding, a signed consent form from the patient or legal guardian has been obtained and is on file
• all contributors are acknowledged in the letter and case report, have given their permission for the case to be published on the Partners Infectious Disease Images website (www.idimages.org), and have agreed to the transfer of copyright of the case and images to the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) if the case is accepted for presentation
• that the case includes the affiliations of all the contributing authors
• the units and reference ranges for all laboratory tests are specified

*All authors must sign the cover letter and consent form. If case submissions are found not to be HIPAA compliant, they will be automatically rejected without the option to edit or amend.

Each submitted case should include images that illustrate important teaching points related to infectious diseases. Examples:

• fungal and mycobacterial infections
• viral infections
• bacterial infections
• parasitic diseases
• infections of immunocompromised hosts
• tropical infectious diseases

When submitting a general Adult ID case only, you will be asked to select one category from the following topics:

• bacterial infections
• mycobacterial infections
• Rickettsial infections
• fungal infections
• HIV/AIDS
• viral infections (other than HIV)
• parasitic infections
• other

The deadline to complete a submission is Thursday, May 7, 2020 at 5 p.m. EDT.  Incomplete cases will be deleted without consideration.

Each submission must include:

• Online attestation that the case report and images are in compliance with HIPAA Privacy Regulations and do not contain identifiable patient information.
• Signed attestation form from Program Director or ID Faculty Attending
• A signed and scanned copy of the cover letter with all contributors’ signatures. (Download the cover letter and consent form template.)
• A Word document of the case. (Download the case submission template.)
• A PowerPoint presentation of the case. (Download a PowerPoint presentation example.)
  • **IMPORTANT** Do not include your name or affiliation  in the case report or PowerPoint you submit. Cases will be reviewed “blindly” to help ensure a fair and unbiased review of your case submission.

Please email program@idweek.org if you have any questions regarding the submission process.

All submitting/presenting authors must complete and submit a signed pediatric cover letter and consent* stating:

• that he or she is enrolled as a fellow in an ID training program or as a pediatric resident or medical student
• the case has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere
• that no confidential patient information is revealed (see HIPAA Regulations and list of 18 identifiers that must be removed)
• that if the case includes an image of a physical finding, a signed consent form from the patient or legal guardian has been obtained and is on file
• that the case includes the affiliations of all the contributing authors
• the units and reference ranges for all laboratory tests are specified

*All authors must sign the cover letter and consent form.

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Each submitted case should include images that illustrate important teaching points related to pediatric infectious diseases. We are looking for cases that illustrate an unusual presentation of a common disease, as well as those that highlight a common presentation of a rare disease. Cases that highlight the infectious complication of an immune deficiency will also be considered. 

Additionally, trainees who have been selected to present their case in the past will not be selected in a subsequent year. If you have submitted a case in the past that was not selected, you are welcome to submit again the following year. Cases from the last two (2) years need to be updated.

Below are final diagnoses for cases presented at the last two Pediatric Fellows’ Day workshops.

• Blastomyces dermatitidis
• Brucellosis with presumed CNS involvement
• Chikungunya
• Coccidioides posadasii meningitis
• Paragonimiasis
• Neuromyelitis optica (NMO) associated with primary HIV infection
• Hansen’s disease – borderline tuberculoid, paucibacillary
• Purulent pericarditis from Haemophilus influenzae, type A
• Culture negative Bartonella henselae endocarditis complicated by glomerulonephritis
• Fatal disseminated Oka strain Varicella in a child with suspected SCID variant

All contributors are acknowledged in the consent letter and case report have given their permission for the case to be published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, and have agreed to the transfer of copyright of the case and images to the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society if the case is accepted for presentation.

The deadline to complete a submission is 5 p.m. EDT on Thursday, May 7, 2020. Incomplete cases will be deleted without consideration.

To ensure high quality submissions and that HIPAA Privacy Regulations are met, the author’s program director or ID faculty attending must review the case report and validate that the report complies prior to uploading the case files.

Program director/faculty attending must complete and sign the attestation form. The form must be uploaded with the other files during the submission process. Please note that it is the responsibility of the primary/submitting author to provide a copy of the case presentation directly to the program director/faculty attending for review. 

Each submission must include:

• A signed and scanned copy of the cover letter with all contributors’ signatures. (Download the pediatric cover letter and consent form template.)
• A PowerPoint presentation of the case. (Download the pediatric PowerPoint presentation example.)
• **IMPORTANT** Do not include your name or affiliation in the PowerPoint

Here are some helpful tips to consider:

The purpose of the session is to “uncover” the thinking of experts about interesting pediatric infectious disease cases. Trainees present the case as an unknown and our panelists discuss their approach to the patient and to identify areas where new research in pediatric ID is needed.

• What makes a good case for this session? The best cases are those that present an interesting differential or a diagnostic or treatment dilemma.
• Remember that the entire presentation should take no more than ten minutes. In general, five minutes is allotted for the case presentation. The case presentation should conclude with a slide that lists a thoughtful differential diagnosis. After comments from the faculty panelists, the trainees will have an additional five minutes to reveal the diagnosis and highlight teaching points. Cases with excellent images (pathology, pathogens, patient physical examination findings or radiographs) are preferred.
• It is very important that a faculty person review the trainee’s work and help him or her create the presentations. The quality of the presentation is important. Slides with bullet points are easier to read than slides that contain paragraphs of text. Slides should be free of misspellings and grammatical errors. Please use the example PowerPoint presentation and use it as a model when developing your presentation. 

Questions? Email Angie Myers at amyers@cmh.edu.

To ensure that case reports are compliant with HIPAA regulations, please read the list of 18 elements which the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and National Institutes of Health require the removal of from shared public health information. In the statements below, the healthcare provider is considered the “covered entity.”

De-identifying Protected Health Information Under the Privacy Rule Covered entities may use or disclose health information that is de-identified without restriction under the Privacy Rule. Covered entities seeking to release this health information must determine that the information has been de-identified using either statistical verification of de-identification or by removing certain pieces of information from each record as specified in the Rule.

The Privacy Rule allows a covered entity to de-identify data by removing all 18 elements that could be used to identify the individual or the individual’s relatives, employers, or household members; these elements are enumerated in the Privacy Rule. The covered entity also must have no actual knowledge that the remaining information could be used alone or in combination with other information to identify the individual who is the subject of the information. Under this method, the identifiers that must be removed from the case and images submitted are the following:

1. Names.
2. All geographic subdivisions smaller than a state, including street address, city, county, precinct, ZIP Code, and their equivalent geographical codes, except for the initial three digits of a ZIP Code if, according to the current publicly available data from the Bureau of the Census: The geographic unit formed by combining all ZIP Codes with the same three initial digits contains more than 20,000 people. The initial three digits of a ZIP Code for all such geographic units containing 20,000 or fewer people are changed to 000.
3. All elements of dates (except year) directly related to an individual, including birth date, admission date, discharge date, date of death; and all ages over 89 and all elements of dates (including year) indicative of such age, except that such ages and elements may be aggregated into a single category of age 90 or older.
4. Telephone numbers.
5. Facsimile numbers.
6. Electronic mail addresses.
7. Social security numbers.
8. Medical record numbers.
9. Health plan beneficiary numbers.
10. Account numbers.
11. Certificate/license numbers.
12. Vehicle identifiers and serial numbers, including license plate numbers.
13. Device identifiers and serial numbers.
14. Web universal resource locators (URLs).
15. Internet protocol (IP) address numbers.
16. Biometric identifiers, including fingerprints and voiceprints.
17. Full-face photographic images and any comparable images.
18. Any other unique identifying number, characteristic, or code, unless otherwise permitted by the Privacy Rule for re-identification.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. (2 Feb. 2007). “HIPAA Privacy Rule.” In addition, if an image of a physical finding is present (even if it is not identifiable), please confirm that the patient or their legal representative has signed a consent form for the image or images to be published for medical education, and that the consent form is on file.  The consent form should NOT be submitted but should be kept on file.

Case reports are considered official communications of the conference. The presenting author and co-authors must comply with the IDWeek embargo policy, which states that case reports must be based on results that have not been previously published and are not anticipated to be published before the meeting UNLESS the publication occurs AFTER the abstract withdrawal deadline on July 17. Case reports must not be submitted if previously presented at a national or international meeting such as IDSA, SHEA, ICAAC, ASM, CROI, or ECCMID. The IDWeek Program Committee will consider case reports that have been previously submitted at smaller/regional meetings, but have not been published in a journal and on the proviso that no rights have previously been transferred; however, all new or updated data must be included in the case report.

Authors and co-authors transfer any copyrights and agree to release the case report for future IDWeek publication on idimages.org and in all formats including translation, the production of audio/video record oral presentations for later sale or publication, and the right to allow third parties to carry out any of these activities.

Please note: In submitting your case report you also warrant that you have exercised reasonable care to ensure that the Article is accurate and does not contain anything which is libelous, or obscene, or infringes on anyone’s copyright, right of privacy, or other rights.

All case reports must be embargoed until Wednesday, October 21, at 12:01 a.m. EDT, with the exception of research findings presented at IDWeek press conferences.