Fellowship Overview

Description

We are a high volume liver transplant center, performing approximately 200 adult liver transplants per year. We are the largest living donor liver transplant program in North America with 50-70 living liver donations per year. Our program follows >2000 recipients in clinic, and maintains a waiting list of 200-250 patients, meaning that approximately 10-15 new patients are assessed for transplant weekly. Our transplant program includes innovative therapies including living liver donation for fulminant liver failure and extensive liver cancer, donation after cardiac death, and liver transplantation with normothermic perfused grafts.

We have four funded transplant hepatology fellowship positions. The trainees come for one or two years, depending on the future career goals for the fellow. We recommend a one-year fellowship if the fellow will return to a center that provides care for transplant patient, but is not performing liver transplantations. If the fellow aims for a future position in an active transplant center a two-year fellowship is advisable. Our fellowship positions are fully funded and a salary is provided. The fellow is required to participate 3-4 times per months in the in-house call of the Multi-Organ transplant service. Our fellowship curriculum involves weekly rotations between the in house liver transplant service, the liver transplant outpatient clinics, and protected time for research. The fellowship also includes participation in elective and emergency endoscopy for liver transplant patients. We will arrange for rotations in transplant related fields such as radiology, pathology, and imaging according to the fellows wishes and needs.

Research

Clinical research is an important component of the fellowship. We provide an extensive database including more than 2000 liver transplantations with liver 20 years of follow-up. A database manager as well as a statistician is available to assist with research projects. Our patient population includes many unique features, such as a large living donor population, patients with extensive hepatocellular carcinomas, large data sets for uncommon indications for liver transplantation. Our expectations are that the fellow completes one project in his/her first year and three projects in the second year.