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.
