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Curriculum

Consult Services

Fellows rotate through the UMMC inpatient consult services throughout their training, starting in the fall of their first year of fellowship. The consult services at UMMC consist of an inpatient general GI team and liver team. In the first 1-2 months of their first UMMC consultation month, the first-year fellow is paired with a third-year fellow who serves as a mentor in navigating the logistics of this service. As fellows advance in fellowship training, they may also rotate through a week-long inpatient consult service at Mississippi Baptist Medical Center under the direction of the attending at that site.

During rotations on these services, fellows will personally evaluate consultations, develop diagnostic and management plans, round on these patients with the attending and team, document recommendations in consult and follow-up notes, and perform endoscopy on these patients as time allows. Under the direction of the attending physician at UMMC, fellows also lead a team of trainees, including medical residents and occasionally medical students, and are responsible for teaching the other learners on the team how to deliver patient-centered, efficient GI/Hepatology consult care within the UMMC system.

The inpatient consult services provide invaluable exposure to all types of urgent and emergent GI conditions, including GI bleeding, inflammatory bowel disease flares, acute liver decompensated cirrhosis and complex endoscopic cases.

Outpatient Clinical Experience

The outpatient experience is obtained during fellowship training at UMMC and Mississippi Baptist Medical Center. All three years of the fellowship have weekly half-day continuity clinics. One 6-month block is dedicated to each of the following clinical areas: hepatology, general GI/inflammatory bowel disease, advanced pancreatic/biliary. The remaining three blocks may be used to tailor the experience to professional goals. Additionally, there are outpatient clinical experiences in the clinic setting as part of other rotations.

Procedural Experience

Due to the volume and breadth of patients seen at UMMC, the procedural experience in our GI fellowship is superb and unparalleled. Fellows are encouraged to scope inpatients they see on the consult services and the continuity clinic. Fellows also gain valuable high-volume endoscopy experience in the private practice setting during their Mississippi Baptist Medical Center rotations, which is mostly an outpatient experience.

Teaching

Fellows are a very important part of all aspects of teaching at UMMC. In addition to bedside teaching of other trainees and the patient on bedside rounds, fellows also assist in formal teaching sessions with residents, medical students, and PA students.

One major goal of our fellowship is that we train and inspire fellows to learn and teach others throughout their careers, whether those careers are academic, community, or a hybrid of the two. We recognize that lifelong learning and adaptation to new medical technologies and advancements are major foundations of providing excellent care to patients. Fellows are expected to learn how to interpret and analyze medical literature and apply this knowledge to their daily practices.

Our fellowship has one of the highest 20-year ABIM pass rates for any specialty at UMMC. The amazing clinical, procedural, and didactic experiences offered within the fellowship enable our hard-working, intelligent fellows to excel on the Gastroenterology ABIM Board.

Call

Fellows take call at UMMC for one week at a time throughout their fellowship training, with progressively fewer calls taken as they advance through the years of training. Faculty members are readily available throughout these calls and supervise any procedures performed on call. Fellows, faculty, and resident(s) round together on the weekends as well.

Conferences

Senior fellows are expected to create the conference schedule, and all fellows participate in didactic conferences presented by faculty and fellows throughout the year. The program director also reviews the schedule and incorporates ideas and suggestions from the prior year into the schedule. For example, based on a recommendation from fellows, the schedule was changed so that each month's conferences are centered around an area of GI – i.e., October is Esophagus month and all lectures, conferences, and Board review sessions focus on esophageal conditions.

• GI Core Curriculum Conference – weekly; we use the ACG/ASGE/AASLD GI curriculum and strive to cover all the major topics within this national curriculum. Lectures are given by faculty and fellows, both within the GI division and outside of our division and our institution.
• Fellows' Meeting – as needed; this session allows us to discuss issues specific to fellows – such as rotational, clinical, and procedural concerns; rotational requirements; schedules; and suggestions for improvement within the fellowship. During this meeting, the program director typically provides food, and the meeting is a relaxed session in which concerns can be freely voiced and addressed.
• Morbidity and Mortality Conference – biannually; during this conference, each fellow presents one case with morbidity or mortality that occurred during the prior few months. As part of this presentation, the fellow is expected to provide clinical pearls and recommendations from which we can all learn and discuss.
• Board Review Conference – twice per month; fellows review DDSEP, ACG or similar board-style questions relevant to the GI focus for the month.
• Journal Club – at least once per quarter; fellows choose a study relevant to the topic for the month and present both the study article and any clinical pearls about the study and the topic. We have held several of these sessions over dinner at a faculty member's home and plan to continue to do so in the future.