Advanced Inflammatory Bowel Disease Fellowship

A one-year program of education in clinical research and management of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) patients for physicians who have completed Internal Medicine residency and GI fellowship training, in which they will:

• Participate directly in the management of patients with IBD in both inpatient and outpatient settings.
• Gain experience in radiology, pathology, and surgery relevant to the practice of IBD.
• Participate in ongoing Inflammatory Bowel Disease clinical research projects.
• Design and implement at least one research project for publication.
• Receive teaching in epidemiology, biostatistics, and clinical research design.

Our goal is to expose trainees to excellent clinical and research training and to facilitate the growth of future clinical and academic leaders in IBD.

Department of Medicine, Gastroenterology

• Maria T. Abreu, M.D.
• Oriana M. Damas, M.D.
• Amar R. Deshpande, M.D.
• David H. Kerman, M.D.
• Siobhan Proksell, M.D.

Department of Pathology, Gastrointestinal Pathology

• Jonathan England, M.D.
• Monica Garcia, M.D.
• Oliver McDonald, M.D., Ph.D.
• Clara Milikowski, M.D.
• Elizabeth A. Montgomery, M.D.
• Julio Poveda, M.D.
• Nemencio Ronquillo, M.D.
• Rhonda Yantiss, M.D.

Department of Radiology, Abdominal Imaging

• R Patricia Castillo, M.D.
• Russ Kuker, M.D.

Department of Surgery, Colorectal Surgery

• Luanne Force, M.D.
  
• Vanessa Hui, M.D.
• Floriano Marchetti, M.D.
• Nivedh Paluvoi, M.D.
  
• Laurence Sands, M.D.
• David Zhang, M.D.

Clinical Activities

Clinical activities involve both outpatient and inpatient experiences. The IBD faculty are committed to helping trainee develop clinical skills and expertise in IBD and to foster independence and autonomy in a supervised training environment.

The Crohn’s and Colitis Center provides outpatient ambulatory services for hundreds of patients each month. Fellows will attend 4-6 half-day clinics per week and will be expected to maintain follow-up of patients they encounter. In addition, fellows will have the opportunity to perform endoscopy one day per week.  

Fellows will also have the opportunity to round and follow IBD inpatients with an IBD faculty member. The IBD fellow will learn about the management of severe ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, becoming familiar with the therapeutic options that can be offered to patients. In addition, the fellow will be involved in pre-operative decision making and post-operative management of patients with IBD. The IBD fellow will be expected to take patient calls during these rotations with appropriate faculty back-up.

Diagnostic Radiology and Pathology

The fellow will gain competence in radiology and pathology as they relate to IBD through ongoing work with IBD clinical mentors as well as by attending regular didactic sessions with GI radiologists and GI pathologists.

Conferences

The GI division offers several educational conferences on a monthly basis.  The IBD Fellow can expect to attend the IBD Path/Case Conference, GI Grand Rounds, Journal Club, and Research Conference. The IBD Fellow is expected to facilitate a monthly IBD Pathology conference and may present at GI Grand Rounds and Journal Club.

Research

The research experience is a critical component to the Advanced IBD Fellowship training program. Once an applicant has been accepted to the program, we strongly encourage early communication with the program director to identify an area of research interest that can be discussed prior to starting the program. Each fellow will be assigned a primary research mentor, who will oversee the fellow’s research project and progress. It is expected that fellows will take ownership of at least one high-quality project under appropriate mentorship in clinical, translational, benchtop, epidemiologic, or health systems research. Fellows are strongly encouraged to submit their research to national or international meetings and submit manuscripts for publication to high-quality journals. In addition, fellows will be expected to write and publish a review on a topic of research interest as well as present their research topic early in the year at a divisional GI conference.

In addition to regular meetings with the primary research mentor, fellows may present at monthly research conferences. In addition, the division has many ongoing clinical research studies which provide alternative therapeutic options to our patients that are not offered elsewhere. The trainee will have the opportunity to learn about these studies and how they can provide non-standard of care options treatment option for their patients, and the fellow will interact with our clinical research team to better understand the various aspects of large-scale clinical trials.