Patient Care

The Division is actively engaged in patient care, education of fellows, residents and medical students, and clinical research at Los Angeles General Medical Center. Separate Gastroenterology and Hepatology Consult Services provide inpatient consultations, outpatient consultations and follow-up care at the Los Angeles General Medical Center GI and Liver clinics, relocated to join the Hepatitis Clinic in the Los Angeles General Medical Center Outpatient Building. To enhance consultative services, eConsults was initiated in 2013 to facilitate the evaluation of patients and to educate primary care providers, as well as to schedule patients for outpatient clinics. A full range of endoscopic procedures are provided in the Endoscopy Suite in the Diagnostic and Treatment Building at LALos Angeles General Medical CenterC+USC. In addition to standard GI procedures, the Division performs a variety of advanced procedures, including endoscopic retrograde cholangio-pancreatography (ERCP), choledochoscopy with laser lithotripsy, endoscopic ultrasound (EUS), radiofrequency ablation of Barrett’s esophagus and double balloon small bowel enteroscopy. Areas of research interest for the faculty and fellows include GI bleeding, esophageal motility, Barrett’s esophagus, pancreatitis and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Divisional activities at Keck Hospital of USC (KH) and USC Norris Cancer Hospital (Norris) encompass inpatient and outpatient services in gastroenterology and hepatology. Independent consultative services provide subspecialty care for patients with all varieties of gastrointestinal and liver diseases. Elective outpatient upper gastrointestinal endoscopy and colonoscopy, small bowel enteroscopy, capsule endoscopy, ERCP and EUS, and liver biopsy procedures are performed in a new and expanded outpatient endoscopy center. The program is a referral center for Norris/KH but has also received cases from the San Gabriel Valley as well as the central coast, Nevada and Washington. Special EUS services include fine needle aspiration as well as celiac plexus blocks and pseudocyst drainage.