Gastroenterology Fellowship

Curriculum

The first year GI fellow organizes a weekly GI conference in which all participate. Gastroenterology consultations are conducted daily with a number of staff physicians. The fellow is part of a consult team that includes a resident, an attending physician, and often a fourth year student. Educational bedside rounds with designated staff take place at least three times a week. Monthly multidisciplinary conferences are arranged by the second year fellow. Also, regularly scheduled conferences are held, including regular pathology and radiology teaching rounds. GI Tumor Board is held monthly and this is a multidisciplinary conference, which includes gastroenterology, pathology, medical oncology, surgery, radiation therapy and radiology. GI Journal Club is held on a monthly base with a review of three or four articles in a class journal club setting.

The Inflammatory Bowl Disease Conference held monthly centers around cases from the inflammatory bowl disease clinic. Liver Transplantation Selection Committee is a valuable meeting the fellows attend while on service.

A unique aspect of the fellowship training at California Pacific Medical Center is the opportunity to attend the GI conference at the University of California, San Francisco on weekly bases. This typically involves a two-hour session, including one hour of didactic presentation and a one-hour of Grand Rounds with formal lectures and clinical case discussions. Each year the faculty at UCSF gives a formal fellows course that covers the basics of GI. It is well received and is attended by the California Pacific fellows.

The second year fellow is exposed to a large number of diagnostic and therapeutic ERCPs. On average, a fellow performs a minimum of 200 procedures. ERCPs are performed both on the general GI Service and also on the specialized Interventional Endoscopy Service.

The third year fellowship will include some inpatient ward rotations but a significant continuous block will be dedicated to research. Each fellow will be expected to participate in a scholarly activity throughout the fellowship, resulting in two or more publications during the fellowship. Research time may be used for collaboration with ongoing faculty research or independent clinical study with a defined scope. The liver transplant computer database provides an opportunity for retrospective clinical studies with the support of one of the clinical hepatologists. We envision the third year to include at least six months of research time depending on the fellow’s interest. Ongoing research is being conducted in hepatology, HIV, transplant medicine, viral hepatitis, inflammatory bowel disease, interventional endoscopy, endoscopic ultrasound and motility. There are multiple available, very active elective programs at California Pacific Medical Center, including the Interventional Endoscopy Service with two
world renowned interventional Endoscopists with an extremely busy service.

On Interventional Endoscopy Service, a wide variety of advanced procedures, including: endoscopic ultrasound, ERCP, endoscopic mucosal resection and double balloon enteroscopy are performed. This service is active in the evaluation of new procedures and techniques and multiple research opportunities are available on this service.

The motility service is an active and exciting service at California Pacific Medical Center. It is the focus of a wide variety of research.

Pediatric GI service, including advance Pediatric GI endoscopy, is performed at CPMC and this elective is available.

There is also a colon retro-surgery service at CPMC, which many fellows choose for rotation.