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Teaching
Teaching :
Staff at the hospital play a major role in both undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, occupying several of the key administrative posts in these areas. During term time, there are weekly research meetings, clinical meetings and Grand Rounds. Morning Report is held twice-weekly throughout the year.
Postgraduate Teaching
We run an active programme of postgraduate education including clinical teaching, radiology and histopathology sessions, and also a weekly research meeting for members of the hospital. Senior and junior staffs of the Centre are involved in the gastroenterology fellowship program in the hospital comprises three years of training in a fashion that is tailored to the career goals of fellows. The primary goal of the program is to prepare trainees for an academic career in basic and clinical research. During their training, fellows will become proficient in both the clinical and investigative aspects of academic gastroenterology and hepatology. The program has been in existence for more than 10 years and has an outstanding record of success in preparing and placing its trainees in prestigious faculty positions and successful private practices throughout the country. Each fellow is assigned an advisor for the three years of training to provide general support and increasing representation of women in its fellowship training programs.
Description of the Program
The first year of the program is devoted entirely to acquiring the clinical skills necessary to be an accomplished gastroenterologist. In addition to performing inpatient and outpatient consultations, the trainee gains considerable experience with those procedures necessary to fulfil this role. These procedures include upper gastrointestinal endoscopy, esophageal dilation, ulcer hemostasis, endoscopic band ligation, colonoscopy, polypectomy, sigmoidoscopy, and liver biopsy. Throughout the year, biopsy and x-ray interpretation are stressed. Trainees also get some experience with esophageal and anorectal manometry, endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) and endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS).
Clinical training include night call schedule and precise duties vary somewhat at the hospital.
The basic research pathway is available for the fellow who is interested in laboratory-based research. The clinical research pathway is structured for the fellow whose interests centre around patient-related research, including epidemiology, outcomes, or heath policy. Fellows in the clinical research pathway are encouraged to apply for formal training in clinical research leading to the (board degree) and also master's and PhD degree from other colleges . Regardless of the track chosen during the first year, each fellow will choose an area of investigative focus (clinical or bench) for the subsequent research training years. Laboratory-based fellows spend a significant portion of their second and third years in bench-oriented research activities, while fellows interested in a more clinically-oriented pathway spend most of their second and third years gaining clinical and investigative skills as well as completing course work if part of a masters program. Research fellows will spend three years, or more if needed, in one of the well-established research programs of one of the Universities in Baghdad within or outside of the Centre of Gastroenterology and Hepatology. This phase of training is under cover of the Iraqi commission of higher specialization supported, in part, by Ministry of Health training grant and in part, by hospital or clinical funds. During this period of research, each research fellow is encouraged to prepare independent applications for advanced research training.
During their second and third fellowship years, fellows will devote additional time to clinical activities to meet the requirements for board eligibility and certification including hepatology and esophageal and GI motility. Clinical activities include participating in one half-day continuity outpatient clinic per week, performing procedures on clinic patients and sharing night-call responsibilities (six nights per month) at the hospital.
Fellows in the Clinical Pathway will devote considerably more time to patient care in their second and third years, including activities related to the specific clinical studies they are undertaking. Clinical track fellows will receive advanced training in general liver disease, transplant hepatology, GI motility, and exposure to diagnostic and therapeutic ERCP, EUS, and therapeutic endoscopy. Clinical track fellows will work under the supervision of one or more faculty mentors, and each clinical fellow is expected to complete one clinical study and submit one manuscript per year for each of their second and third years of training, for a total of two completed projects by the end of their third year. Protected time will be provided during the second and third years of training to facilitate completion of clinical studies. Planned research projects are presented at the GI Clinical Conference once a year during the second and third year of training, and a progress and more polished research talk is also presented at the end of the year by each of the second and third year fellows. A Research Committee monitors the progress of the research and provides oversight to each of the fellows.
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