Arpan A. Patel, MD

Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Patel earned his bachelor of science at Pennsylvania State University and received his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College, where he graduated summa cum laude and was awarded membership in Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) and the Gold Humanism Honor Society (GHHS). He completed his internship and residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania before beginning his fellowship training at the Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases at UCLA in 2014.

During fellowship, Dr. Patel joined the UCLA Specialty Training and Advanced Research (STAR) and the NRSA (National Research Service Award) T32 Primary Care Research Fellowship programs through the Department of Medicine. This support allowed him to complete a PhD in health policy and management through the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA in 2020. His thesis focused on describing advance care planning in patients with decompensated cirrhosis at liver transplant centers. Dr. Patel also completed additional clinical training in transplant hepatology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai from 2018 to 2019. During this year, he was awarded the opportunity to serve as a visiting scholar at the Hastings Center. In 2020, Dr. Patel joined the faculty at the UCLA Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases as an assistant clinical professor of medicine.

Dr. Patel’s research focuses on describing, measuring and improving the quality of palliative care delivered to patients with serious liver-related illnesses, as well as its effect on their caregivers. He has particular interests in improving communication regarding goals of care, caregiver burden, symptom management and end of life care. In 2018, he was the recipient of the Advanced/Transplant Hepatology Fellowship Award, which provided funding for his project, “Improving Advance Care Planning in End Stage Liver Disease.”

Dr. Patel’s research has been published in a number of journals, including JAMA Internal Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, Hepatology, Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, Liver Transplantation, Clinical Liver Diseases, and Digestive Diseases and Sciences. He is an active member of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) and the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM).

Patel Laboratory

The Patel Laboratory is a health services research program focused on measuring and improving the quality of care delivered to individuals with chronic liver diseases, which include cirrhosis, hepatobiliary cancers, alcohol-associated liver disease, metabolic (dysfunction)-associated fatty liver disease and viral hepatitis. 

Awards

  • UCLA CTSI Institutional KL2 Translational Science Award 2023 - "Contingency Management for Patients with Alcohol-Associated Liver Disease Following Liver Transplantation." His work is intended to test a behavioral intervention called "contingency management" to support abstinence for patients with alcohol-associated liver disease who may be at risk for returning to drinking following liver transplantation. Contingency management is a behavioral intervention that employs monetary incentives to reinforce abstinence from substance use disorders. His primary mentor will be Steven Shoptaw, PhD, director of the UCLA Center for Behavioral and Addition Medicine and vice chair for research in Family Medicine.
  • National Palliative Care Research Center (NPCRC) 2023 Kornfeld Scholars Program Award - "Improving the Delivery of Palliative Care to Hospitalized Adults with Acute on Chronic Liver Failure." His primary mentor is Anne M. Walling, MD, PhD, director of palliative care research for the Department of Medicine at UCLA and VA Greater Los Angeles (VA GLA). 

Publications

  1. Patel, AA, Walling, AM, May, FP, Saab, S and Wenger, N, 2017. Palliative Care and Health Care Utilization for Patients With End-Stage Liver Disease at the End of Life. Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
  2. Carr, RM, Patel, A, Bownik, H, Oranu, A, Kerner, C, Praestgaard, A, Forde, KA, Reddy, KR and Lichtenstein, GR, 2017. Intestinal inflammation does not predict nonalcoholic fatty liver disease severity in inflammatory bowel disease patients. Digestive Diseases and Sciences, 62(5), pp.1354-1361.
  3. Patel, A, Benhammou, JN, Ohning, GV, Lewis, M and Ishimitsu, D, 2015. Rectosigmoid Inflammatory Cytomegalovirus Pseudotumor: A Disappearing Act. Gastroenterol Pancreatol Liver Disord 2 (4): 1-3.
  4. Yadla, S, Patel, A, Jabbour, P and Harrop, JS, 2010. CASE REPORT Congenital absence of the internal carotid artery in a patient with spinal cord injury: case report. Spinal Cord, 48, pp.352-354.