Clinical training

Your training in the Gastroenterology Fellowship includes extensive exposure to common and unusual gastroenterology and hepatology problems. This experience helps you to develop the clinical skills necessary to evaluate and manage inpatients and outpatients with these conditions. You become skilled at diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopy. Through your patient care experiences and educational conferences, you rapidly expand your gastroenterology and hepatology knowledge base.

During your fellowship, you work closely with faculty providing patient care in ambulatory and inpatient settings. The favorable faculty ratio; large, diverse patient population; and state-of-the-art diagnostic, therapeutic and research facilities combine to create an ideal educational setting. The "Mayo Clinic way" of graduate medical education ensures you have the finest teaching and the broadest patient care experience possible during a busy, hands-on fellowship.

In your continuity clinic, you follow a group of patients over the duration of your training program to gain an understanding of the long-term course of diseases. Your clinical activities are designed based on the educational value of each experience.

The primary training sites are Mayo Clinic and Mayo Clinic Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida. The pediatric gastroenterology elective rotation is at Nemours Children's Specialty Care in Jacksonville. Liver transplant training takes place on the busy Mayo Clinic transplant service. Elective rotations at Mayo Clinic's campus in Rochester, Minnesota, also may be available.

Rotation schedule

This is a typical Gastroenterology Fellowship training schedule:

Continuity clinic occurs throughout the three years. Elective options include pediatric gastroenterology, pathology, radiology, HIV clinic, advanced endoscopic training, additional research time, rotations at Mayo Clinic's campus in Rochester or special programs you design.

Endoscopic training

Training is provided in:

• Diagnostic and therapeutic upper endoscopy
• Colonoscopy
• Sigmoidoscopy
• Esophageal dilation
• PEG placement
• Variceal and nonvariceal hemostasis

You also gain exposure to advanced techniques like ERCP, endoscopic ultrasound, laser, photodynamic therapy and stents. Endoscopic training takes place daily on clinical rotations.

Special clinical training

Dedicated periods are set aside to provide clinical training in important areas of gastroenterology. During these rotations, you work with a faculty member who has special interest and expertise in the area:

• Hepatobiliary disease
• Clinical nutrition and nutritional support
• Motility disorders and motility studies
• Gastrointestinal radiology and pathology
• Management of liver transplant patients
• Pediatric gastroenterology

Additional opportunities are available for the development of clinical and research expertise within these areas.

Didactic training

Clinical conferences, seminars, small discussion groups, journal clubs and one-on-one instruction are all integral parts of the Gastroenterology Fellowship.

There is an active schedule of teaching conferences that averages two conferences each week. The goal of these conferences is to help you develop the knowledge and skills necessary to function as an effective consultant in gastroenterology in a clinical academic setting. Faculty members and fellows present at the conferences.

During a series of GI Core Conferences, faculty members provide a didactic review of important topics in gastroenterology. GI Basic Science Conferences cover important areas of gastrointestinal physiology. Visiting professors give state-of-the-art talks and review cases with gastroenterology fellows.

Other regular conferences provide teaching in the format of case discussions and literature reviews, and include:

• GI Medical-Surgical Conference
• GI Case Conference
• Journal Club
• Endoscopy Conference
• GI Research Conference
• Swallowing Interest Group
• Esophageal Cancer Interest Group
• Liver Transplant Selection Conference

You also participate in other Mayo-wide conferences and training programs, such as Grand Rounds and Clinical-Pathologic Conferences.

Research training

A portion of your Gastroenterology Fellowship is dedicated to research. This provides you the opportunity to define, develop and perform formal clinical research projects under the guidance of experienced faculty. The Clinical Research Center provides facilities, equipment and research nurse assistants to support your clinical research projects.

There are opportunities to collaborate with basic scientists at Mayo's Birdsall Research Building in Jacksonville or with researchers at Mayo Clinic's campus in Rochester. You share the information generated during the research year through presentations at national meetings and in publications.

In addition to the formal research block, you complete additional research projects, case reports or topic reviews during clinical training.

Call frequency

The fellowship call schedule is different for each rotation. Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science follows the recommendations of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.

Teaching opportunities

We help you develop your teaching skills and your ability to give effective oral presentations. You participate in the formal and informal teaching of colleagues, internal medicine and family medicine residents, medical students, and nursing staff. You may have the opportunity to make presentations at national meetings sponsored by Mayo Clinic.

Career development

You meet periodically with faculty members, administrators and the program director to discuss your career goals. Mayo recruits many of its staff physicians from its own training programs, so when you successfully complete the Gastroenterology Fellowship, job opportunities may be available at one of Mayo Clinic's group practices.

Evaluation

To ensure that you acquire adequate knowledge and develop your technical skills, your performance is monitored carefully throughout the Gastroenterology Fellowship. Your supervising faculty member provides an evaluation after each clinical rotation. In addition, you regularly evaluate the faculty to ensure that your educational needs are being met.