Gastroenterology and Hepatology Fellowship

General Application Information

Applications are only accepted through ERAS in accordance to the NRMP Specialties Matching Service policies and schedules.

Application Requirements

• Three letters of recommendation
• Passing scores on all USMLE steps or on all COMLEX levels

Learn more about the process of applying for a gastroenterology and hepatology fellowship in this 2012 article from Gastroenterology.

Interview Details

The program interviews on Wednesdays in late September through early November. Those selected to interview will be contacted directly.

Virtual Tour

Penn State Health

Penn State Health is a multi-hospital health system serving patients and communities across 29 counties of Pennsylvania. Its mission is to improve health through patient care, research, education and community outreach.

In December 2017, the system partnered with Highmark Health to facilitate creation of a value-based, community care network in the region. The shared goal of Highmark and Penn State Health is to ensure patients in the community are within:

• 10 minutes of a Penn State Health primary care provider
• 20 minutes of Penn State Health specialty care
• 30 minutes of a Penn State Health acute care facility

Learn more about Penn State Health

Penn State Health Children’s Hospital (left), Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center (center) and Penn State Cancer Institute (right)

Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center

500 University Dr., Hershey, Pa., 17033 (Derry Township, Dauphin County)

• The health system’s 647-bed flagship teaching and research hospital
• The only medical facility in Pennsylvania accredited as both an adult and a pediatric Level I (highest-level) trauma center
• Dedicated surgical, neuroscience, cardiovascular, trauma and medical intensive care units
• Accredited Life Lion critical-care transport providing more than 1,100 helicopter and approximately 750 ground ambulance transports per year
• More than 1,300 faculty members and more than 650 residents and fellows
• Approximately 29,000 admissions, 73,000 emergency department visits, 1.1 million outpatient visits and 33,000 surgical procedures annually
• Designated as a Magnet hospital since 2007

Learn more about Milton S. Hershey Medical Center

Penn State Health Children’s Hospital

600 University Dr., Hershey, Pa. 17033 (Derry Township, Dauphin County)

• An eight-story, 263,000-square-foot-facility built in 2013 and expanded in 2020
• 146 licensed pediatric beds, 18 acute care beds and a 56-bed neonatal intensive care unit
• Level IV (highest-level) neonatal intensive care unit
• Level I quaternary (highest-level) pediatric intensive care unit
• Level I (highest-level) pediatric trauma center designation
• Intermediate care unit
• Dedicated pediatric operating rooms
• More than 150,000 pediatric outpatient visits and approximately 5,000 pediatric patient discharges annually

Learn more about Penn State Health Children’s Hospital

Welcome to Hershey

More About Hershey

Interested in learning more about living and working in Hershey, Pa.? See details here:

• Benefit and stipend information
• Virtual tour
• GME policies
• Wellness resources
• More about Penn State Health and its locations
• Application and visa requirements

Wellness, including emotional, spiritual, social and physical health, is a crucial component to training and to becoming a professional, compassionate and resilient physician. Self-care is a skill which must be continually practiced and reinforced. Penn State College of Medicine and Penn State Health are committed to addressing wellness among residents and fellows, with multiple resources readily available.

Institutional resources

• Visit BeWell – a health program designed to support Penn State Health employees
• See Penn State College of Medicine wellness resources here
• Employee Health Care Concierge and Case Management Service
• Partners in Medicine
  Moving to a new city with your family does not have to be stressful. Our residency program has assisted many significant others with finding employment. There is also a GME-Wide Partners in Medicine (PIM) group that offers networking opportunities as well as various social and community oriented activities.
• The Doctors Kienle Center for Humanistic Medicine

Graduate medical education resources

• See resident and fellow wellness resources here

Institutional Resources

Penn State Health and Penn State College of Medicine celebrate, embrace and support the diversity of all patients, faculty, staff, students and trainees.

Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

In keeping with this, Penn State Health has an active Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion with various programs, networks and resource groups, including:

• Talks and lectures on diversity, equity and inclusion through the Inclusion Academy
• Regular events on topics such as eradicating racism and creating a culture of inclusiveness
• Many Business Employee Resource Groups (BERGs), including:
  • Disability Business Employee Resource Group
  • Interfaith Business Employee Resource Group
  • LGBTQ+ Business Employee Resource Group
  • Military and Veterans Business Employee Resource Group
  • Multicultural Business Employee Resource Group
  • NextGen Business Employee Resource Group

Learn more about the Penn State Health Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Learn more about the College of Medicine’s Office for Diversity, Equity and Belonging

Office for Culturally Responsive Health Care Education

The vision at Penn State College of Medicine and Penn State Health is to equip learners with the knowledge, skills and attitudes they will need to provide culturally excellent health care and research for an increasingly diverse U.S. population. The Office for Culturally Responsive Health Care Education was formed to help meet that goal.

Learn more about the Office for Culturally Responsive Health Care Education

Office for a Respectful Learning Environment

In addition, the institution does not tolerate discrimination, biases, microaggression, harassment or learner mistreatment of any kind, and any concerns are immediately addressed by the Office for a Respectful Learning Environment.

Learn more about the Office for a Respectful Learning Environment

Network of Under-represented Residents and Fellows
The Network of Under-represented Residents and Fellows (NURF) is a group of diverse residents and fellows representing all specialties. NURF’s goal is to promote cultural diversity in the residency programs through community involvement, mentorship with diverse faculty, professional networking and support for the recruitment of diverse medical students into the residency programs.

NURF is sponsored by the Penn State College of Medicine Graduate Medical Education Office and the Penn State Health Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Learn more information about NURF

The first year of the fellowship involves intensive clinical training with emphasis on the pathophysiological approach to diagnosis and management of a broad spectrum of GI and liver diseases.

Consultative GI Service

The first-year fellow is responsible for the management of a busy Gastroenterology Consultative Service. More than 800 consults per year provide a broad base of clinical experience. The consultative gastroenterology team consists of an attending, a fellow, a rotating medicine resident and one or two medical students. Daily teaching rounds are conducted seven days a week.

Endoscopy Rotation

During these dedicated endoscopy rotations, the fellows are taught the cognitive and procedural skills in diagnostic endoscopy, including upper endoscopy and colonoscopy. Upper endoscopic procedures include esophageal dilatation, pneumatic dilatation, percutaneous gastrostomy tube placements, small bowel biopsy, and therapeutic modalities to control upper gastrointestinal bleeding including bicap, heater probe and injection therapy. Liver biopsies, along with injection sclerotherapy and banding of varices and placement of Sengstaken Blakemore tubes in the treatment of bleeding esophageal varices, are taught in the management of patients with liver disease. Lower gastrointestinal endoscopic procedures include flexible sigmoidoscopy and colonoscopy with polypectomy.

Outpatient Continuity Clinic

Half-day clinics provide a broad experience in the management of patients in the outpatient setting.

IBD Rotation

Fellows will spend one month on a dedicated IBD rotation.

Motility Rotation

Fellows will spend one month on a dedicated motility rotation.

Research

Fellows will work with a research mentor to start to develop projects.

ASGE Endoscopy Education

First-year fellows will attend a weekend of structured endoscopy education in Chicago, usually within their first 60 days of fellowship.

The second year of the fellowship provides training in more advanced procedural skills and an introduction to research.

Endoscopy Rotation

The procedures that are performed by the second-year fellow include more colonoscopy training, diagnostic ERCP and treatment of malignant strictures by YAG laser and further fine-tuning of the stated skills learned in the first year.

Transplant Hepatology

For two to three months, the second-year fellow is assigned to the Liver Service. This service includes attendance at the weekly Liver Transplant Clinic, where prospective patients with liver diseases are managed.

Research

The fellows are exposed to clinical or basic science research during the second year through months of protected time during which the fellows are not involved in clinical activities other than outpatient clinic one half-day per week and a half day of endoscopy. It is expected that fellows will submit an abstract to the national meetings of the American Gastroenterological Association, the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the American College of Gastroenterology or the American Association of Liver Diseases.

IBD Rotation

Fellows will spend one month on a dedicated IBD rotation.

Motility Rotation

Fellows will spend one month on a dedicated motility rotation.

Consultative GI Service

Second-year fellows will also participate for a few weeks on this service.

The structure of the third year is designed to enable fellows to become competitive in their career paths. For those fellows interested in pursuing an academic career path, the third year will be designed to enhance their basic science or clinical research experience and to enable them to achieve funding for additional training, if necessary, as well as providing the clinical experience to develop expertise in a specific clinical area.

Endoscopy Rotation

Third-year fellows are involved in therapeutic ERCP, including sphincterotomy, stone extraction and stent placement in the biliary and pancreatic ducts. Exposure to endoscopic ultrasound is available. In addition, fellows will continue to enhance their skills at EGD and colonoscopies.

Research

There will be dedicated research time given during the third year as well.

IBD Rotation

Fellows will spend one month on a dedicated IBD rotation.

Motility Rotation

Fellows will spend one month on a dedicated motility rotation.

Transplant Hepatology

For one to two months, the third-year fellow is assigned to the Liver Service. This service includes attendance at the weekly Liver Transplant Clinic, where prospective patients with liver diseases are managed.

Consultative GI Service

Third-year fellows will also participate for a few weeks on this service.

The fourth year is an advanced endoscopy fellowship focusing on therapeutic endoscopic procedures, such as ERCP, EMR, luminal steering and treatments for Barrett’s esophagus. This is an optional, non-ACGME-accredited year.

See details on the Advanced Gastroenterology Endoscopy Fellowship

Night and weekend call are shared by all fellows.

Fellows are encouraged to develop a fellowship in line with their interests. For example, a fellow could do an elective in radiology or pediatric gastroenterology.

In addition to the outpatient and inpatient clinical experience, there are a number of formal and informal teaching conferences within the division. Fellows are extensively involved in all these conferences.

In addition to the in-house conferences, the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology is active in the Central Pennsylvania Gut Club.

Fellows attend the annual meeting of the major gastroenterology or liver societies. Those who have research-based abstracts accepted for presentation will be able to attend additional conferences.

The weekly and monthly conferences include:

• Clinical Case Conference
• Journal Club
• Research Conference
• Morbidity and Mortality Conference
• Liver/Pancreas/Foregut Conference
• Medicine Grand Rounds
• GI and Hepatology Pathophysiology Conferences
• IBD Multidisciplinary Conference
• Endoscopic Video Series
• IBD Multicenter Conference
• Interventional Endoscopy Conference
• Monthly meeting with the fellows and Program Director
• IBD Clinical Conference
• Motility Interest Group
• Liver Tumor Conference

Penn State College of Medicine and Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center accept ongoing nominations for the Exceptional Moments in Teaching award.

The award, given monthly by the Office for a Respectful Learning Environment, accepts nominations from College of Medicine students who are invited to submit narratives about faculty members, residents, fellows, nurses or any other educators who challenge them and provide an exceptional learning experience. See more about the award here.

Previous nominees from the Gastroenterology and Hepatology Fellowship are listed here. Click the + next to a nominee name to read their nominator’s comments.

Previous oral and poster presentations from the Gastroenterology and Hepatology Fellowship are listed here.

The annual Resident/Fellow Research Day is held each year (with exception of during the COVID-19 pandemic) on and around the Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center campus.

The intent of the event is to provide an opportunity for residents and fellows to showcase their research accomplishments to their peers in other clinical departments, as well as their colleagues in the basic sciences.

Learn more about Resident/Fellow Research Day here.

Previous presentations from the Gastroenterology and Hepatology Fellowship are listed here.