Pediatric Gastroenterology

The Children’s Hospital of Michigan Graduate Medical Education offers a three-year fellowship-training program in the field of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition. Children’s Hospital of Michigan is a 228-bed tertiary care center located in the Midtown area of Detroit and is the only free-standing children’s hospital in the Metro Detroit region. Children’s Hospital of Michigan is consistently ranked among the nation's top pediatric hospitals. It is the pediatric facility within the Detroit Medical Center complex and serves as the center for pediatric training for Central Michigan University School of Medicine and Wayne State University School of Medicine. The Children’s Hospital of Michigan serves a large and diverse urban and suburban population with a vast array of pathology.

The Program has been fully accredited in Pediatric Gastroenterology by the Residency Review Committee of ACGME since our specialty was first recognized by ACGME in 1994. The goals of this program are to prepare the Fellow for a career in academic medicine, with strong emphasis on excellence in clinical care, teaching and productive and independent research. The first year of the Fellowship is devoted primarily to clinical training, education and endoscopic experience. The second and third years, in addition to clinical care, are focused towards research that the fellow became interested in during the first year.

Three fellows are accepted into the Program every three years. Fellows have ample opportunity to see a wide variety of gastrointestinal, liver, and nutritional disorders and to finesse skills in all the usual procedures necessary for the Pediatric Gastroenterologist. In addition, experience in the care of liver transplant patients is provided.

First Year Fellowship Training

The first year of fellowship is dedicated to learning the basics of evaluating, managing children presenting with a variety of gastrointestinal, and related symptoms for consultation to the division of Pediatric Gastroenterology (GI), Hepatology and Nutrition in both the inpatient and outpatient setting. The fellows will be introduced to the basics of the procedural part of the subspecialty. This will include understanding about the technologic part of the instruments, learning eligibility criteria for a given procedure, choosing the correct procedure for a given case, obtaining informed consent, technique of performing the procedures, post procedure management, and follow-up plans. Fellows rapidly acquire skills in endoscopic procedures beginning in their first year of the program through hands-on procedures. First-year fellow participates in the inpatient care experience for a total of 12 months spread over 3 years of training. During the course of the first year, the trainee will be introduced to research ideas so that by the end of the year, the GI fellow will be able to select a research area to pursue and a faculty mentorship.

Second and Third Year Training

During the second and third year of training, the fellow will take an active part in educating the families/patients, medical students, residents, and allied healthcare professionals while participating in the teaching conferences of the division. The fellow will be able to continue to improve clinical skills in patient care, increase knowledge base, improve endoscopic skills, develop consultative role, work effectively as a member or leader of a health care team, demonstrate sensitivity to diversity, become better at using methods to control health care costs while assuring quality, advocate for promotion of health, and prevention of disease through ongoing self assessment of practice experience, with input from patients/parents, peers, and supervising faculty. During the three years of fellowship, the fellow will have protected time for full pursuance of research with the fellow having research months built into the year schedule. Research opportunities are numerous under the mentorship of one of the pediatric gastroenterologists. In addition, the Children’s Research Center of Michigan at The Children’s Hospital provides study design, bio-statistical, bioinformatics, and scientific support for clinical investigation.

Contact Us

Fellowship Program Director
Kristen Cares, MD

Fellowship Coordinator
Shahad Al-Naber, MHA
[email protected]