Clinical training
Fellows spend the majority of their rotaions at RUSH University Medical Center and approximately 4 months at RUSH Oak Park Hospital, which is a nearby affiliated community hospital.
Clinical rotations (each rotation is a 2-week block):
- Gastroenterology (consult service)
- Hepatology and transplant hepatology (consult service)
- Pancreas/biliary (consult service)
- ROPH rotation (consult service)
- Outpatient clinic/endoscopy
- Pathology/radiology
- Inpatient endoscopy (for 3rd year fellows)
Outpatient training
You'll help staff general clinics as well as specialty clinics in liver transplant, functional bowel diseases, inflammatory bowel disease and pancreatic diseases.
In state-of-the-art endoscopic labs equipped with the most advanced Olympus equipment, you'll train in standard and advanced procedures, including the following:
- Therapeutic ERCP
- EUS
- Video capsule endoscopy
- Esophageal, small bowel and anorectal manometry
- Prolonged pH monitoring and gut transit by telemetry
- Endoluminal therapies for GERD
Research
You'll participate in clinical research in the Section of Gastroenterology and Nutrition, with six months of research time scheduled over the three-year fellowship. You may pursue your own research projects or participate in faculty research, which currently includes the following:
- Inflammatory bowel diseases (pathophysiologic mechanisms at the membrane level)
- New cytokine therapeutic options and alternative therapies
- Endoscopic techniques (management of endoscopy negative dysphagia)
- Use of endoscopic ultrasound in pancreatic diseases
- Evaluation of newer endoscopic modalities for treating reflux
- New combination therapies for treating hepatitis B and C; quality of life assessments in patients with active hepatitis C
- Peptic ulcer disease management (evaluation of long-term treatments of symptomatic GERD; the validity of assessing prolonged acid exposures in those with symptomatic GERD)
Conferences are a vital part of training and include gastroenterology and internal medicine grand rounds; gastroenterology journal clubs; hepatology journal club; medicine and society conference; liver pathology conferences; endoscopy conference, capsule club; motility conference; safety conference; pancreas/biliary conference; ibd conference; sleisenger and fordtran's textbook chapter review (weekly).