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Overview

Our commitment to teaching encompasses educating medical students, residents, fellows, and fully trained physicians in practice. Our curriculum also offers training to holders of advanced degrees in the sciences (usually Ph.D. degrees in biologic sciences) who wish to pursue research that is relevant to gastrointestinal, pancreatic, and hepatobiliary medicine.

Our curriculum is largely based upon the Gastroenterology Core Curriculum developed by the major gastroenterology societies, and is updated to reflect any changes in the core curriculum. The fellowship adheres to the program requirements of the ACGME as specified by the RRC for gastroenterology.

Our fellowship training program is comprised of  3 pathways:

  • Physician Scientist
  • ​Clinician Teacher
  • Hepatology Fast Track

Core Skills

The pathways include basic skills to be mastered by trainees:

  1. Knowledge base of anatomy, physiology, nutrition, biochemistry, cell biology, genetics, and pharmacology that is relevant to the specialty
  2. Clinical care of hospitalized patients with disease
  3. Technical aspects of gastroenterology/hepatology practice; including endoscopic procedures
  4. Ambulatory care skills (including disease prevention and screening)
  5. Research training
  6. Ancillary skills geared to each trainee's career plans

Scholarly Projects

All trainees will participate in clinical research training to understand the process of generating new knowledge in Medicine. Trainees will work with one or more mentor(s) through their 3 to 5 year program to achieve a good grasp of addressing clinically relevant questions with scientific rigor, and have first hand experience in analyzing and presenting scientific data. The program is committed to providing the trainee with protected time to focus on a selected topic of special training on a rotational basis in all of our teaching institutions.

Specialized Training

Specialized areas of training embedded within the fellowship include:

  1. GI Pathology – where trainees will learn the techniques of preparing tissue sections, special histochemical and immunocytochemical staining methods, as well as interpretation of morphological structures in various disease states.

  2. GI Radiology – where trainees will learn the principles and methods of imaging including abdominal plain films, ultrasonography, CT scan, MRI and PET. They will be able to study how to interpret imaging results with expert GI radiologists.

  3. Specialized Clinics - where patients presenting with a defined disorders are cared for by a focused and concentrated effort and expertise. These training scenarios afford unique opportunities to benefit the trainees in the following areas: Hepatology Liver Transplantation, Advanced Endoscopy, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Functional GI and Motility Disorders, and , and Gastrointestinal Problems in Oncology Patients.

Levels of Training

Physicians who enter fellowship already have substantial knowledge in most of these areas that serves as a base for further learning. The fellowship in Gastroenterology has two levels of training, Level I for general gastroenterology and hepatology, and Level II for more complex and difficult diagnoses and procedures. Fellows progress to Level II training after demonstrating competence in general gastroenterology and hepatology.

Teaching

Fellows routinely interact and teach medical students, internal medicine residents, and surgery residents on the inpatient and outpatient services. As third years, fellows participate in the medical school gut course helping lead small group sessions for medical students.

Endoscopy Training

Endoscopy training starts during orientation when incoming fellows have the opportunity to practice on an endoscopic medical simulator. Fellows get their feet wet and start endoscopy on the first day of fellowship. Skills are honed via the American society for gastrointestinal endoscopy (ASGE) endoscopy course in Chicago. This is a two day course at the ASGE headquarters in Chicago run by experienced faculty around the country focusing on hands on training. Skills are developed and consolidated throughout fellowship. Seniors fellows participate in advanced endoscopic procedures and rotate through high volume ambulatory surgical centers.

Conferences

Fellows have protected time each Friday to attend the department’s Frontiers in Gastroenterology and Hepatology conference. Each year starts with an “Emergency Lecture Series” that focuses on the basics in gastroenterology for the first year GI fellows. As the year progresses, the focus shifts to the latest advances in gastroenterology and hepatology. Fellows frequently participate in the conferences presenting morbidity, mortality, and management talks and journal article reviews. Prominent guest speakers give presentations on a quarterly basis. Fellows have the opportunity to share dinner with the speaker at a fellows-only event at a local restaurant the night prior to the conference.