I was the first chief of gastroenterology at the Buffalo VA Medical Center, and I have been an attending physician and have cared for patients there for more than 30 years. I am also an attending physician at Erie County Medical Center (ECMC), and I see patients at UBMD Internal Medicine at Amherst as part of the UBMD practice plan.

I am a board certified gastroenterologist, and my specialty interest in clinical care is treating patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), specifically patients with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. I focus my practice exclusively on individuals with these disorders.

My primary interest in IBD is treating the disease and understanding and treating its complications. I am also interested in identifying and understanding genetic predispositions to the disease, i.e., why the disease runs in some families, and why IBD may sometimes occur or get worse after a patient sustains an infection.

I follow more than 100 patients with IBD, including many in families that have multiple generations affected by the disease. I take a holistic, multidisciplinary approach to the care of my IBD patients, and their welfare and recovery are my primary concern. In treating them, I work in close collaboration with surgeons and nutritionists whose skills and knowledge are frequently needed to help treat and support patients with IBD.

I enjoy teaching medical students residents and gastroenterology fellows and contribute to the division’s teaching activities through several case studies that are used to demonstrate important principles in clinical gastroenterology and hepatology. I lecture extensively on IBD, its complications and its manifestations.