Gastrointestinal Oncology

Rotating through a specialized cancer center increases your skills in diagnosing and treating gastrointestinal cancers and expands your understanding of the complications of cancer therapy.

Our gastrointestinal oncology rotation will deepen your knowledge about the pathobiology of gastrointestinal cancers, including cancer genetics, epidemiology and pharmacology. 

You will develop skills in establishing effective therapeutic relationships with terminally ill patients and their families, and you’ll become acquainted with complications of cancer treatment such as:

  • graft versus host disease
  • hepatic veno-occlusive disease

We will help you learn ethical aspects of procedures such as placement of percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tubes in patients with advanced cancer. You’ll also gain a deeper understanding of ethical issues in withdrawal of care.

You will have opportunities to see both inpatient and outpatient consultations during this rotation.

Procedures

In addition to performing basic percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube placement, upper GI endoscopy and colonoscopy, you will be exposed to advanced gastroenterological procedures including:

  • diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography
  • endoscopic ultrasound
  • photodynamic therapy
  • double balloon enteroscopy
  • radiofrequency ablation of esophageal lesions  

As a second-year fellow, you will learn the indications for these advanced procedures, and you’ll focus on proper technique for positioning the endoscope, interpretation of endoscopic findings and appropriate post-procedure follow up.  

In your third year, our attending physician will guide you as you perform procedures such as: 

  • biliary cannulation
  • stent placement
  • fine needle aspiration

After procedures, you’ll gain experience preparing reports, following patients and reviewing pathological or radiological material obtained during the studies.

Supplementary Experience

You can expect to participate in our multidisciplinary conference while on our gastrointestinal oncology rotation.

Additionally, you’ll select topics for your journal club and grand rounds presentations based on the aspects of your patient care and medical knowledge you’d like to improve. 

Years Taken

  • Year 2
  • Year 3

Patient Population

Your patients may have conditions including:

  • biliary cancer
  • colorectal cancer
  • esophageal cancer
  • gastric cancer
  • gastrointestinal stromal tumors
  • liver cancer
  • mucosa associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma
  • pancreatic cancer

Clinical Sites