Bayhealth starts gastroenterology fellowship in Dover, Milford

Bayhealth | DBT PHOTO BY KATIE TABELING

DOVER — A new gastroenterology fellowship is on the horizon for Bayhealth and its future medical professionals to grow available programming while meeting the needs of Delaware’s increasingly aging population.

The program will operate in two of Delaware’s three counties where the nonprofit hospital system contends that much of the population from both areas remains underserved. New fellows involved in the program will rotate between the new Bayhealth Sussex in Milford and Bayhealth Hospital, Kent Campus in Dover, formerly known as Kent General Hospital.

Along with professionals from Bayhealth, fellows will also learn from Einstein Hospital in Philadelphia with which Bayhealth has an affiliation for years, according to Gastroenterology Fellowship Program Director Dr. Bhavin Dave. The Pennsylvania-based hospital handles almost all of Bayhealth’s complex live cases and liver transplant needs, he said. 

The doctors in the fellowship program will have the opportunity to train in more complex hepatology cases, or those that deal with the liver, gallbladder, biliary tree and pancreas.

“This is an intense three-year curriculum meant for residents who have completed three years of internal medicine. It gives them basic skills to deal with all general GI problems and also teaches them all the necessary skills for general GI procedures,” Dave told the Delaware Business Times in a prepared statement. “Moreover, they will get adequate training to deal with hepatology and liver issues. The liver transplant issues are more complex and they will earn that in a rotation with Einstein. The goal is to have an exceptionally-trained gastroenterologist.”

Dave said along with training new professionals in the field of gastroenterology, meeting the needs of Delaware’s growing and aging population is also a key component. 

“There is a shortage of GI physicians and this should help alleviate it to a certain degree,” he told DBT.  “The greatest GI needs are from the elderly population. Any state with an elderly population needs more GI physicians. This is part of our target.”

Moreover, he added, the program is designed to grow the number of professionals within the Bayhealth hospital system, one of several major nonprofit hospital systems in Delaware. 

The First State has seen an increase in new fellowship and residency programs in recent years amongst all of the hospital systems as a way to attract doctors. Last year, for example, Bayhealth opened the first hematology and medical oncology fellowship program in the state, and had launched a residency program three years before.

“We already have a history of success with internal medicine, where many of the [internal medicine] residents stayed in our hospital system. We most certainly hope that the fellows will like the town, community and the quality of care delivered here and that they decide to make Delaware their residence,” Dave explained.

“I look at fellowship and training as an immense source of knowledge.  This knowledge helps all the way across,” he added. “It helps create an environment geared for excellence in patient care, increasing public awareness, gives more access to community driven programs, cost effective care, and there is a joy in sharing knowledge. Let us work together for a better, wiser, healthier community.”

Prior to Bayhealth’s new offering, the only other gastroenterology fellowship program available in Delaware was a partnership between Nemours Children’s Health and Thomas Jefferson University at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College.