FAQ - Gastroenterology

[WildWing]

---

Members don't see this ad.

We are working on a consistent set of FAQs for all specialties as part of a revamp of the Specialty Selector.

If you are a practicing Gastroenterologist, please share your expertise by answering these questions.

Thank you in advance for considering this opportunity to give back to the SDN community!

• What is unique or special about this specialty?
• What other specialties did you consider and why did you pick this one?
• What challenges will this specialty face in the next 10 years?
• What are common practice settings for this specialty?
• How challenging or easy is it to match in this specialty?
• What excites you most about your specialty in the next 5, 10, 15 years from now?
• Does your specialty currently use or do you foresee the incorporation of technology such as Artificial Intelligence?
• What are some typical traits to be successful in this specialty? (For example, organization skills, work independently)
• What does a typical workday consist of in your specialty?
• What is the career progression for your specialty?
• How has your work impacted your life dynamics? What is your work-life balance?
• How does healthcare policy impact your specialty?

 

[1Cor1557]

We are working on a consistent set of FAQs for all specialties as part of a revamp of the Specialty Selector.

If you are a practicing Gastroenterologist, please share your expertise by answering these questions.

Thank you in advance for considering this opportunity to give back to the SDN community!

• What is unique or special about this specialty? I like our field because you can still be a proceduralist and clinician and be balanced between the two without sacrificing the other and I feel that compliments each other quite nicely much better than doing medicine alone or a medicine subspecialty without any procedures or doing surgery alone and so I do enjoy it as a form of a hybrid
• What other specialties did you consider and why did you pick this one? I honestly thought I would do primary care or hospitalist until in training I promise myself I would never go into primary care, Yes I can't handle 80% of the population with back pain and obesity and metabolic comorbidities and 12 problems expected to be addressed in 15 minutes over and over non-stop for the rest of my life. Now I can just prescribe a PPI or schedule a procedure and inform the patient to follow up with their PCP for their other 12 problems there is nothing more powerful than medicine to be able to say that
• What challenges will this specialty face in the next 10 years? Although I am delighted to be in GI considering it's inherent limitations retrospectively I did select it as a trainee tactically considering economics as well as supply and demand as well as expected shortage of GI what people don't realize is that outside of the overly saturated coasts the shortage is actually worse than we first believed and so the amount of strain and overwhelming volume is only gotten worse and worse and even though it may be considered to be nice to be so desperately needed in terms of leverage that can be overwhelming at times booking out 6 months
• What are common practice settings for this specialty? Employed is becoming more common over and over because the macroeconomics are hostile to stay independent and so there is more and more consolidation and private equity as well as for-profit acquisitions that will continue to be the trend going forward throughout all of healthcare I don't regret employed It comes with pros and cons, but the bygone era of Independent practice is simply a relic of the past with the insurmountable practice costs that are not realistic for small scale operations to exist
• How challenging or easy is it to match in this specialty? I guess the raw

• numbers should be referenced as made available by the AAMC I'll keep in mind less and less applicants are applying to medical schools overall which makes sense why squander a lost decade of costs and time when you could practice in a specialty clinic without any weekends or calls or nights saving yourself 10 years of extra training to be advanced practitioner, If I could go back and change one thing I would have done that instead of going into medical school but that's all water under the bridge as they would say
• What excites you most about your specialty in the next 5, 10, 15 years from now? That is a big red flag in medicine to be called exciting I tell patients all the time you don't want to be interesting or exciting in medicine because more often than not there's a pathologic captivation that leads something to be exciting, I tell my patients all the time you want to be boring, stability and health is boring but disease and pathology is highly volatile and regretfully for lack of a better word exciting. And trust me there's a lot of exciting things in GI we are struggling to keep up with increasing pathologic burden across the whole western population that is becoming more and more progressively sicker overall while are shortage of people available to take care of them has grown and so while the economics of supply and demand are highly favorable in terms of leverage it can be overwhelming and this trend shows no abatement in sight
• Does your specialty currently use or do you foresee the incorporation of technology such as Artificial Intelligence? It has tried to but has been underwhelming and poorly performing but these are first generation models in terms of polyp detection which do not do very well, there will be more advancements over the next decade that'll be far more valuable but this will be more for pharmacologic agents as well as radiologic and physiologic testing for example video capital endoscopy and motility studies and so forth will be greatly enhanced as well as therapeutic regimens and this has implications for the clinic side which is already run by advanced practitioners who are not physicians, The diagnostics is what the game changer will be and that will be markedly enhanced over the next decade with AI And this is a good thing for patient care and quality of health although it will be a disruptor for those who are not currently proceduralists hence another reason becoming a specialist with procedural tilt is a defensive mechanism to ensure viable contribution and longstanding viability to the field without direct threats
• What are some typical traits to be successful in this specialty? (For example, organization skills, work independently) The same that would apply to any human being you need to take thoughtful deliberate action for the good of other human beings even when it is difficult which is about half the time Life is a bunch of Mondays over and over and over human beings get sick and cranky and nothing is going according to plan but you need to be able to show up and take deliberate thoughtful action for the good of people who need you And if you're able to do that over and over you're going to be successful no matter what you do and if that's something you're not able to do that's a skill you can develop if you're a patient enough to continue to foster because this is what our world needs no matter what you do
• What does a typical workday consist of in your specialty? Again highly variable but remember I am employed and this leads us to ability that I appreciate I'm not on the coasts but which again is overly saturated I'm in the heartland of the country not rural but in a metropolitan area that is of a good size and so I get to enjoy the good amenities as well as good quality of life but I also enjoy large amount of leverage in terms of practice composition and so even though I exceed 75th percentile in income as well as productivity and units produced I feel I have a very good quality of life and I actually tailor my workday according to my needs without any pushback for my employer because they need me due to raw supply and demand that I enjoy leverage I would not enjoy elsewhere
• What is the career progression for your specialty? You can be as ambitious as you want but remember burnout is real it's talked about but without preserving your energy and ability over the long term you will not be able to be sustainable over expected career horizon slow and steady wins the race this is a paradigm for life that very much holds true for medicine if you wish to be resilient
• How has your work impacted your life dynamics? What is your work-life balance? Again burn out is real it's not jargon or buzzword even though as a student in residence and trainee you may have worked markedly objectively extended hours this is not sustainable over 30-year horizon or even a few years out to fellowship and you will learn what sustainable is slow and steady wins the race and fortunately enjoying the leverage over this I could make a negotiations to my employer that make a happy employee because they understand the happy employees are productive one that is retained
• How does healthcare policy impact your specialty? We are blessed to enjoy a developed nation but make no mistake that healthcare system is broken The cost of health care for a family over the last 20 years has quadrupled and cost of healthcare over the last 10 years has doubled, The macroeconomics of this is beyond any one local hospital or health system and the headwinds making things more difficult or very strong The second and third order implications from federal directives have complicated this further either due to incompetence or dare I say maligned interests regretfully I would recommend overall avoiding health care altogether or seeking the advanced practitioner tract to avoid losing a lost decade of wages income and even more importantly time although it will be vulnerable to encroqchment from AI over the next 10 years which threatens at least 30% of the workforce

Inserted responses in the field above, See above , good luck 🤞