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Gastroenterology Fellowship Program

Education / Graduate Medical Education / Prospective Fellows / Gastroenterology Fellowship Program / About the Program / Our Facilities

 

Our Facilities

 

UR Medicine has an extensive network of medical facilities thought Western NY.

Strong Memorial Hospital at the University of Rochester Medical Center has approximately 850 beds. The main URMC campus, including Strong Memorial Hospital, Wilmot Cancer Institute, and Golisano Children's Hospital, is the only hospital campus in which the required activities of the fellowship are conducted throughout the UR Medicine Health System.

The Division of Gastroenterology is based in the outpatient Ambulatory Care facility attached to the hospital and includes:

  • The professional faculty offices, administrative and clerical support areas
  • An extensive 6-room endoscopy suite dedicated to inpatient and outpatient gastroenterology procedures
  • Two rooms functioning as suites for ERCP and advanced therapeutic endoscopy
  • Endoscopic equipment is frequently upgraded in (2016 and 2019 with new Olympus 190 scopes and new fluoroscopy equipment) to the most current line of Olympus video equipment with Image Manager software
  • The ERCP suite features state-of-the-art digital image management
  • A large 10-bed recovery area and pre-procedure admitting rooms
  • A room dedicated to esophageal pH and manometry testing, with equipment and personnel to perform other physiologic tests in diagnostic gastroenterology, such as hydrogen breath testing, secretin stimulation assay, gastric acid analysis, and ano-rectal manometrics
  • An additional floor above the endoscopy unit with patient exam rooms available for outpatient clinical consultations and follow-up visits, utilized for Fellows Clinic. This additional space also houses a large provider work room and additional provider offices.
  • Outpatient consultations also occur in an off-campus office suite (Sawgrass) which provides 12 exam rooms, 4 state-of-the-art endoscopy rooms, and also houses our video-capsule endoscopy equipment. Additional procedure space is available at other satellite locations (Strong West, Hightland Hospital).
  • An expansive conference room for the educational program

Additional facilities include:

  • Three outpatient endoscopy centers where endoscopic procedures may be performed: Sawgrass (main outpatient endoscopy site), Highland Hosptital, and Strong West.
  • Emergency department with over 40 acute care beds, trauma unit, self-contained radiology suite, observation unit, and adequate facilities to comfortably support endoscopic procedures when needed.
    • Extensive experience is obtained in consultation and procedural intervention in the emergent and urgent care setting.
  • Intensive Care Units, which house a variety of critically ill patients with special requirements for hemodynamic support, respiratory support, cardiac support, and often anticoagulation and provide extensive experience in consultation and procedural intervention in the critically ill under a host of adverse clinical circumstances:
    • Medical Intensive Care
    • Surgical Intensive Care
    • Burn Unit Intensive Care
    • Cardiac Care Unit
    • Post-Cardio-Thoracic Surgery Unit
    • Respiratory Rehabilitation Units
  • The Department of Surgery (pertinent to gastroenterology training) surgical subspecialists and subdivisions, which includes:
    • General gastrointestinal surgery
    • Gastrointestinal oncologic surgery
    • Biliary and pancreatic surgery
    • Thoracic surgery
    • Liver transplantation
    • We enjoy a close relationship with our surgical colleagues, including a monthly GI-surgical joint conference, exchange of speakers between Medical and Surgical Grand Rounds, and a working relationship in a Multidisciplinary Oncology Board, and a Multidisciplinary Nutrition Support Clinic.
  • The Department of Radiology, which includes: 
    • Ultrasound
    • CT scan
    • MRI
    • Nuclear medicine
    • Angiography
    • A dedicated interventional radiology department providing support when needed (for gastroenterology) in terms of percutaneous cholangiography, biliary stent placement, percutaneous gastrostomy, and therapeutic angiography for hemostasis
  • The Department of Pathology, which has:
    • Personnel with dedicated special interests in GI and liver pathology
    • Joint monthly conferences facilitated by a teaching video microscope, which allows any number of attendees to view the images simultaneously and under direction by the pathologist
  • Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, which has:
    • Pediatric and adult GI programs work closely together on the transition of adolescent patients, especially through the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center
    • Pediatric GI faculty and fellows regularly attend our clinical and literature review conferences
    • Adult GI fellowship program sponsors a didactic curriculum in pediatric conferences for our trainees. Pediatric gastroenterology has their own fellowship training program, and the adult program hosts the pediatric fellow for a month each year.

Strong also supports a large multidisciplinary nutrition support team, which includes:

  • Dedicated pharmacists
  • Dietitians specializing in various intensive care settings
  • Nurse practitioners specializing in home parenteral nutrition support
  • Physician participation on the team is provided by an attending gastrointestinal surgeon, an attending gastroenterologist, and a pediatric gastroenterologist
  • Our program sponsors 2 weeks of a dedicated rotation in nutrition support for our fellows, which includes weekly hospital ICU rounds, nutrition support clinic, intensive instruction in TPN formulation and calculations, management of home TPN formulations and patient assessment, and supervised nutrition support consultations in the intensive care settings.

Additional areas of excellence patient care at Strong Memorial which provide exposure and experience for the gastroenterology trainee:

  • A large hematology/oncology division, which provides:
    • Extensive exposure to the diagnosis and management of all the gastrointestinal and hepatic solid tumors
    • Experience in caring for the gastrointestinal and hepatic complications of primary hematologic malignancy, including the complications of bone marrow transplantation
    • Weekly tumor board meeting, which includes participation from our attending faculty who perform ERCP and endoscopic ultrasound, pancreatico-biliary and oncologic surgeons, oncologists, and geneticists when applicable.
  • The Division of Infectious Diseases, which has:
    • A subdivision dedicated to the care of patients with HIV, and this provides our trainees with exposure to the gastrointestinal and hepatic complications of this illness.
    • Extensive clinical activity in solid organ transplantation currently includes programs in kidney, liver and heart transplantation, also providing a unique breadth and depth of exposure for the gastroenterology trainee to the special needs and considerations of these populations as well.
  • Heart transplant program providing care to a very large population of LVAD patients, many of whom require care for GI bleeding.