Scholarly Pursuits in Gastroenterology and Hepatology

One of the explicit goals of this fellowship program is to help fellows develop into future leaders in the field. This requires the development of clinical and/or scholarly niche of expertise. Accordingly, approximately 18 months of the fellowship are devoted to learning academic skills, pursuing in-depth projects, and developing an area of clinical expertise. This process is a multipronged effort across the three years of the fellowship. Fellows may choose to pursue projects in a variety of disciplines across gastroenterology and hepatology, in either clinical, translational or basic research, medical education, quality improvement, innovation and technology, epidemiology and/or patient safety.

First Year

During orientation, fellows are introduced to key leaders in our Division with specialized mentorship expertise. Two months of ‘selectives’ are intentionally interspersed throughout the first year, providing fellows the opportunity to explore different domains of gastroenterology/hepatology. Program leadership meets with fellows during these selectives to engaged in a “guided exploration” of different academic pursuits, facilitating meetings with potential mentors.

By the middle of the first year, fellows begin preparing an Individual Development Plan (IDP) in close collaboration with their mentors and program leadership. The IDP is a structured, adaptive document “in evolution” that identifies academic areas of interest, project outline and goals as well as the mentorship team. The IDP also helps identify clinical areas of interest, gaps in clinical knowledge, and detailed plans to expand their clinical training. The IDP is intended to be a ‘working document’ to form the structure and basis of the 2nd year of fellowship.

Second Year

Approximately six months of the second year is devoted to scholarly pursuits. Fellows utilize this time to initiate the work identified on the IDP, including preparation of protocols and early execution of studies. Fellows in the later stages of their respective projects may begin to submit abstracts for national meetings. Ongoing self-reflection and continuous planning with the mentorship team and program leadership identify future directions of the scholarly work, as well as identify long term career paths. Fellows may identify the need for additional clinical training, such as skill-based programs in intestinal ultrasound, or formal advanced fellowships, in Transplant Hepatology or Advanced Endoscopy. Novel combined training pathways can be developed tailored to the fellows interests; prior fellows have created a combined GI & Geriatrics fellowship, as well as a combined GI/Transplant Hepatology & Palliative Care fellowship. Concurrently, fellows may pursue formal academic skills development, such as certificate coursework in biostatistics or quality improvement, or pursue advanced Masters degrees. In deciding about future training opportunities, a strong emphasis placed on maximizing the protected time within the fellowship to achieve long-term career goals.

Fellows with significant research interests are encouraged to capitalize on the T32 Program in Investigative Gastroenterology which provides funding support for an additional year of research. Fellows revisit the IDP at the end of the 2nd year, establishing timelines for the remainder of the fellowship.

Third Year

Nearly 10 months of the third year are dedicated to scholarly pursuits. A strong emphasis is placed on submitting projects at national meetings as well as manuscript preparation. Fellows with more clinically oriented career paths are engaged in numerous subspeciality electives in order to develop an area of clinical expertise. Regardless of the type of scholarly pursuit, fellows are encouraged to work towards a capstone presentation encompassing their major academic achievements throughout their fellowship. Fellows are sponsored to attend a variety of national meetings to gain additional expertise in their clinical area of interest, expand their network and collaborations with mentors across the country and augment development of their professional identity.