Virtual Grand Rounds

ACG has launched Virtual Grand Rounds (VGR) weekly on Thursdays at Noon EDT. Each week an expert faculty member will present live on a key topic followed by Q & A. Each VGR will be recorded and posted to the ACG Education Universe on the following Monday and Training Directors will be able to assign each video to their trainees as homework. The ACG is committed to professional education and – until we can be together in person again – our goal is to help the GI community embrace #GIhomeschooling at this time. See below for information on how to request a Training Pathways account for your program. To see the upcoming VGR sessions or to register for live sessions, please click here.

Education Universe Training Pathway

The GI Training Pathway, a feature of the ACG Education Universe, is designed to serve as an educational tool for GI fellowship training and contains educational material covering the Gastroenterology Core Curriculum. The site is set up in such a way that allows program directors to assign homework to their fellows consisting of a core lecture series on a variety of GI topics, presentations from ACG’s Annual and Regional Courses, journal articles, self‐assessment test questions and abstracts.

The progress of individual trainees and their proficiency in performance of core competen­cies can be tracked, as well as overall compliance and achievement for each learning assignment.

Watch a demo of the Training Pathway features of the ACG Education Universe below.

For GI Program Directors who don’t currently have an account on the GI Training Pathway, complete the online request form. Want to learn more about how the ACG Education Universe can work for you? Contact education@gi.org.

Edgar Achkar Visiting Professorship Program

The goal of the ACG Edgar Achkar Visiting Professorship Program, which honors former ACG Institute Director, Edgar Achkar, MD, MACG, is to enable GI fellowship programs to have high-quality visiting professors to bolster the training program by providing lectures, small group discussions, and one-on-one visits with trainees and faculty. You choose the speaker, the Institute covers the travel costs and honorarium.

The purpose of these visits is to reach a diverse number of programs while aiming to maximize the impact of each visit by targeting GI training programs, which could also leverage an additional community event with local ACG member physicians, sometimes in conjunction with a local gut club. The programs offer expertise for a specific area of need at each institution.

Since the program’s inception in 2014, the Institute has supported more than 35 visits in the U.S. and Canada. For more information, click here.

NYU OSCE Toolkit

Utilizing OSCEs to Teach and Evaluate Fellows’ Performance: A Gastroenterology Fellowship Program Director’s Toolkit

Recognizing the need for tools to standardize and measure fellows’ performance and offer valuable feedback for improving such skills, the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) and NYU School of Medicine’s Division of Gastroenterology have collaborated to offer a new resource: “Utilizing OSCEs to Teach and Evaluate Fellows’ Performance: A Gastroenterology Fellowship Program Director’s Toolkit.” Developed by NYU School of Medicine, the Toolkit gives you the materials you need as a GI program director to evaluate a fellow’s skills set, using the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) simulation method.

This free, turnkey program, implemented more than six years ago by the NYU School of Medicine team, is designed to utilize challenging simulated clinical scenarios to assess fellows’ medical knowledge, communication skills, and professionalism.

The Toolkit includes all of the necessary instructions, materials, and templates needed for you to replicate this program at your institution. Materials include:

  • Detailed clinical scenarios with evaluation objectives and related ACGME milestones,
  • OSCE station set-up instructions,
  • In-depth character profiles and cues for dialogue for the standardized patients or professionals,
  • Instructions for participating fellows,
  • Checklists to assist the standardized patients and faculty observers in providing feedback to the fellows,
  • Sample fellow report cards and evaluation surveys,
  • Instructions on how to use these materials.

Importantly, each clinical case is developed with the goal of evaluating the fellows’ performance in accordance with designated ACGME milestones.

ACG is collaborating with NYU School of Medicine to offer this new Toolkit to GI programs through the ACG GI Training Pathway. We hope you will find this valuable new resource beneficial to your own gastroenterology fellowship programs.

If you are a GI Program Director, log in here to access the OSCE Toolkit on the GI Training Pathway, and then select the OSCE Toolkit under the blue Director button.

For GI Program Directors who don’t currently have an account on the GI Training Pathway, complete the online request form.

To learn more about the OSCE Toolkit and ACG’s collaboration with NYU, click here.

Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) for GI Fellowship Training

Joint Education Standards Help GI & Hepatology Training Programs Meet Accreditation Requirements

A team of representatives from five gastroenterology and hepatology societies have created a toolbox designed to help Gastroenterology Training Director specialists meet the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Internal Medicine Subspecialty Reporting Milestones requirements while training fellows to independently care for patients. Thirteen core tasks, known as “entrustable professional activities,” or EPAs, have been identified that define the work of gastroenterologists and hepatologists

A toolbox for each task includes, among other things, specific behavioral objectives related to knowledge, skills and attitudes; identification of the key reporting milestones needed to achieve mastery; and suggested assessments to gauge progress.

This toolbox is the creation of the Oversight Working Network (OWN), which was a committee made up of representa­tives from five societies – the American Associa181on for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG), the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute, the American Neurogastroenterology and Motility Society (ANMS) and the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), receiving support from colleagues from the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (NASPGHAN).

The project was developed in response to the new twice-yearly Reporting Milestones requirement – a key component of the Next Accreditation System (NAS). This new outcomes-based accreditation system for graduate medical educa­tion programs took affect for subspecialties July 1, 2014.

EPAs for Gastroenterology Fellowship Training
Supplementary EPA Toolbox
Oversight Working Network (OWN) Website

The Gastroenterology Core Curriculum Third Edition (2007)

GI Training Curriculum – Overview
GI Training Curriculum – Full

The Gastroenterology Core Curriculum was first published in 1996; this document contains the third edition of the Gastroenterology Core Curriculum for gastroenterology fellowship training. The Core Curriculum constitutes a living document that represents the four societies’ vision of best practices in gastroenterology training. It provides a framework for developing an individual plan of study and growth that should be tailored to meet the needs of each individual trainee based on the strengths and special qualities of each individual training program. The curriculum will continue to evolve with time as new knowledge, methods of learning, novel techniques and technologies, and challenges arise.

This edition has been divided into an overview of training and 17 chapters encompassing the breadth of knowledge and skills required for the practice of gastroenterology. These areas include not only the traditional curricular content of gastroenterology and hepatology but also associated disciplines such as pathology, radiology, and surgery. New areas that have been incorporated into the third edition of the Gastroenterology Core Curriculum include new anti-reflux techniques, advanced training (certificate of added qualification [CAQ]) in hepatology, moderate sedation, novel tech­niques and technologies, and CT colonography. Additionally, all areas have been linked to the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Outcome Project’s General Competencies.

This edition of the curriculum represents a joint collaborative effort among the national gastroenterology societies – the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG), the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute, and the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endos­copy (ASGE).

Throughout this document, the paramount importance of practice and research based on the highest principles of ethics, humanism, and professionalism is reinforced. This document links trainee assessment to the ACGME Outcome Project’s General Competencies and as such recommends a number of tools that can be used to assess the compe­tence of trainees, including direct observation by qualified faculty, log books, periodic patient care record reviews, portfolios, patient surveys, 360° global rating evaluations, and formal examinations. Numerical guidelines provide only a minimum standard for competency and instead should be viewed as a threshold level a tier which competency-based assessment should be instituted. Regardless of the duration of training, the number of patients seen, or the number of procedures performed, the ultimate goal must always remain excellence in all aspects of patient care, scholarship, and a commitment to lifelong learning.

The Quality Initiative in Medicine

The Quality Initiative in American medicine is an effort to improve outcomes, maximize safety, and simultaneously increase the value of care for healthcare consumers. Severe cost pressures in the U.S. healthcare delivery system over the past several decades have forged alliances among corporate payers to maximize the cost-effec181veness of care (e.g., the Leapfrog Group, 2000). Reports related to medical errors and patient safety (To Err Is Human, 1999) raised concerns and drew the attention of many public and private entities. The lns181tute of Medicine’s recommenda­tions for an improved health care system (Crossing the Chasm a New Health System for the 21st Century, 2001) urged the alignment of payment with quality improvement.

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) took up that challenge and continues efforts to contain expen­ditures for its beneficiaries. Clinical quality data around the variability of care (e.g., CABG rates in different regions of the country) and outcomes (e.g., CAD mortality rates unchanged, despite uneven intensity of care), have also spurred public demand for a more transparent and predictable standard of care. In recent years, the growth of evidence-based medicine has contributed to healthcare quality and its measurement. Training programs must assure that fellows understand the importance of quality measurement in their future practice of gastroenterology and that fellows are familiar with the techniques used to measure quality and with methods used to enhance performance.