Overview
UCLA's Melvin and Bren Simon Gastroenterology Quality Improvement Program is committed to providing high-quality care and comprehensive education in quality improvement and assurance principles and research for those interested in pursuing an academic career. The Melvin & Bren Simon Gastroenterology Quality Improvement Program Scholar is a one-year position for an individual interested in quality improvement and health care delivery. The scholar will participate in several QI efforts and initiatives in the UCLA Department of Medicine, contribute to research and publications, and develop a personal capstone project for submission to nationally recognized conferences.
Project Design and Leadership
With the support of the QI program director and UCLA quality leaders, the scholar will implement and assess quality interventions throughout the UCLA Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, reaching all UCLA gastroenterology facilities including satellite clinics. Each scholar will also design and develop an innovative quality improvement capstone project in one or more clinical areas using various research and QI methodologies. Clinical areas may include colorectal cancer screening, inflammatory bowel diseases, hepatology, motility disorders, functional bowel disorders and inpatient/outpatient clinical practice.
Education/Training
The scholar is expected to attend gastroenterology clinical case conferences throughout the week with special skill building classes as needed through Intermountain Health, Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health and UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Education will include the following topics but is not limited to:
Project Design and Leadership
Each scholar will design and develop an innovative quality improvement capstone project in one or more clinical interests/areas using various research and QI methodology. Clinical areas may include colorectal cancer screening, inflammatory bowel diseases, hepatology, motility disorders, functional bowel disorders and inpatient/outpatient clinical practice. With the support of a UCLA gastroenterology faculty mentor in adjunct to UCLA's quality leaders, the scholar will implement and assess quality interventions throughout the Division of Digestive Diseases, reaching all UCLA gastroenterology facilities including satellite clinics.
Mentorship/Career Development
The fellowship will be directed by Fola May, MD, PhD, MPhil (May Laboratory), a gastroenterologist, health services researcher, and director of the Gastroenterology Quality Initiative Program at UCLA (Health Services Research). Scholars will work directly with UCLA Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases leadership and Dr. May and will be paired with additional UCLA faculty members and quality leaders, based on clinical interests. Scholars are expected to meet with their mentors on a regular basis to discuss project details, career goals and aspirations. Scholars will have the opportunity to participate in meetings with hospital quality leadership, establish personalized roles on various quality improvement and assurance committees, and serve as liaison within the UCLA Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, Department of Medicine Family Practice Group and various gastroenterology professional societies.
Requirements
Applicants should have completed an ACGME accredited academic internal medicine residency OR a graduate-level degree in public health, statistics, epidemiology or health services. Those candidates with experience in clinical research and an interest in academic medicine are also highly encouraged to apply. Graduates from internal medicine training programs interested in pursuing specialty training in gastroenterology are also encouraged to apply.
Deadline to Apply as a Scholar
We are currently accepting applications through May 1, 2018.
How to Apply
Please send the following documents by email to Dr. Fola May at fmay@mednet.ucla.edu, subject: Melvin and Bren Simon Gastroenterology Quality Improvement Program:
Courtney Reynolds, MD, PhD
Scholar, GI Quality Improvement Program
Health Sciences Clinical Instructor of Medicine
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Dr. Reynolds completed her MS, MD and PhD degrees at University of California, Irvine in 2014. She has a long-standing interest in clinical research; her PhD research focused on the epidemiology of community and healthcare-associated strains of MRSA in hospitals and nursing homes. Dr. Reynolds finished her residency training in internal medicine at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in June, 2017. As the new Melvin and Simon Bren Quality Improvement Scholar in GI, she will be responsible for ongoing projects on colorectal cancer screening, diagnosis of celiac disease, cirrhosis management, and value-based healthcare in inflammatory bowel disease.
Aria Zand, MD
Scholar, GI Quality Improvement Program
Clinical Instructor of Medicine
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Dr. Zand graduated cum laude with a medical degree from the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands in June 2016. During his medical studies he also spent time organizing health- and exercise-related educational events for children in poor socioeconomic areas. In 2013, before starting his clinical rotations, he spent a year as a clinical researcher at the UCLA Center for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases. His research was primarily focused on impaired productivity in patients with IBD, which lead to several publications in peer-reviewed journals and presentations at national and international conferences. Dr. Zand was the GI quality improvement scholar for the academic year of 2016/2017 with a focus on as inflammatory bowel diseases, colorectal cancer, end-stage liver disease, upper GI, productivity and health-related costs. The coming year he has been awarded the ECCO-IOIBD Fellowship and will collaborate with the Department of Applied Mathematics to research precision medicine for IBD using advanced machine learning for his PhD thesis under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Hommes.
