GI Joe

GI = gastrointestinal. I am doing GI on Tuesdays and Fridays for the next 3 weeks. I had my first day of GI yesterday. What is a GI doctor? It is a doctor who did a residency in Internal medicine for 3 - 4 years and then did a fellowship in GI for 3 - 4 years following the internal medicine residency. The training takes 6 - 8 years after medical school. Once they are done with training they see patients referred to them for a variety of GI pathology like; peptic ulcer disease, GERD, colon cancers, liver and pancreas disease, stomach cancer and anything that affects the GI tract from the esophagus to the rectum. 

A large portion of their practice is doing colonoscopies. These are done to screen for cancer or other problems in the colon. They also do upper endoscopies, which is like a colonoscopy but you go down through the mouth and into the stomach. It is cool that they can do procedures. Insurance companies have always paid more for procedures. GI doctors tend to make a good living because of this.

Yesterday I got to help with a whole bunch of procedures. We did colonoscopies and endoscopies. We also had some clinic time where we basically saw patients and set them up for future procedures. It is now recommended that every person over 50 gets a colonoscopy. So far I really like GI because you get to do a bunch of different things which keeps it interesting.