Welcome from the Program Director
Welcome from the Virginia Commonwealth University’s Advanced Inflammatory Bowel (IBD) Disease and Nutrition Fellowship Training Program. Virginia Commonwealth University (The Medical College of Virginia) has a long tradition of prominence in IBD that dates to the National Cooperative Crohn’s Disease Study (NCCDS) completed in the late 1970’s. At the time, the five-year NCCDS was the largest clinical trial in IBD ever completed, enrolling more than a thousand patients and randomizing more than six hundred into treatment arms. The study included the development of the Crohn’s Disease Activity Index aka CDAI, which (despite shortcomings) persists in the clinical lexicon more than forty years later.
Nowadays, our modern Center for IBD features of a multi-disciplinary team and is the largest in Virginia. There are three dedicated IBD faculty, collaborative advanced practice providers, a dietician, Nutrition nurses and PharmD support. The Advanced IBD/Nutrition fellowship is a one-year non-ACGME program. It is closely linked to the categorical Gastroenterology Fellowship and the ACGME-accredited VCU Colon and Rectal Surgery (CRS) Fellowship The CRS Fellowship features four colorectal surgery faculty and trains one fellow per year.
One trainee (either PGY-4 or PGY-7) is selected each year from a large competitive pool. The trainee then has an in-depth experience in the outpatient management of IBD, intestinal failure and related conditions. The trainee participates in the full curriculum and conference schedule of our categorical GI fellowship and also in some CRS activities.
Stephen J. Bickston MD, AGAF, FACG, FASGE
Fellowship Program Director
Email: stephen.bickston@vcuhealth.org