Clinical Research Training During Gastroenterology Fellowship

Excerpt

Gastroenterology (GI) fellowship is clinically rigorous. First-year fellows across the USA face that reality each July as they begin to navigate a diverse curriculum and steep learning curves to acquire the knowledge base, procedural skills, and efficiency necessary to manage patients with a multitude of gastrointestinal and hepatobiliary diseases. Despite the intense clinical burden, involvement in research is also an integral part of fellowship. The clinical experiences fellows have early in their training often translate into creative and practical research projects during the latter part of fellowship, when most have the opportunity to pursue scholarly activities. Although this time is often variably allotted by training programs that lack external funding, some trainees are supported by federal grants through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) such as the T32 Institutional National Research Service Award (NRSA). These grants permit fellows to have protected time and access to scholarly activities and mentorship to develop the knowledge base and skill set necessary to have a successful career in clinical investigation. …