The Department of Pathology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora, Colorado offers a one-year fellowship program in Gastrointestinal and Liver Pathology based at the University of Colorado Hospital. The program design provides broad exposure to gastrointestinal, pancreaticobiliary, and hepatic surgical pathology. Over the last few years, our digestive disease service provides care for approximately 13,000 patients per year. Reflecting the broad scope, expertise, and growth of the institution’s related surgery, gastroenterology, hepatology, and liver transplant services, our group sees the entire range of medical and oncologic adult digestive diseases, including a top quartile amount and variety of pancreaticobiliary, hepatic, and liver transplant cases. Our University of Colorado Hospital is designated an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center and a National Pancreas Foundation Center of Excellence. The current digestive disease surgical pathology faculty at the University of Colorado Hospital includes Drs. Jeffrey Kaplan, Erin Rubin, Christina Arnold, Tony Neto, Toby Cornish, Lindsey Westbrook, and Patrick Henn.
Rotating through the gastrointestinal, pancreaticobiliary, and hepatic surgical pathology services at the University of Colorado Hospital, the fellow will individually work-up cases in a self-directed manner and this will be closely followed with feedback and instruction obtained during the faculty’s regular clinical practice workflow. Elective time is available to complete research projects or rotate through other pathology subspecialties. Appropriate individuals may be offered the opportunity to progress during their fellowship year to an instructor-fellow position with sign-out privileges. Over the course of their time in the fellowship program, the fellow will be responsible for submitting at least an abstract for national presentation. Teaching is an important part of the fellowship program, and the fellow will be involved in the education of medical students, residents, and our clinical colleagues.
In addition to the core clinical practice outlined above, the fellow will be integrated into the services’ ancillary clinical activities. The fellow will participate in the core five weekly multidisciplinary clinical conferences for which we provide consultant services: Pancreaticobiliary Multidisciplinary Conference, Colorectal Cancer Multidisciplinary Conference, Esophagogastric Multidisciplinary Conference, Medical Liver Pathology Rounds, and Liver and Neuroendocrine Tumor Multidisciplinary Conference. Consultations are provided as needed for other clinical conferences, such as the Liver Transplant Selection Committee and Inflammatory Bowel Disease Conference. The fellow will participate in the daily Digestive Disease Case Consultation Conference within our department; at this daily conference, the gastrointestinal and liver pathology group presents and discusses challenging and interesting cases.