Welcome to the Gastroenterology Fellowship Program at the Sanford School of Medicine of the University of South Dakota.
We are excited to offer a three-year ACGME accredited program in clinical gastroenterology at the state-of-the-art Sanford Center for Digestive Health on the Sanford Medical Center campus.
Our fellowship training program will give fellows a broad, comprehensive, balanced exposure to clinically based gastroenterology and hepatology curriculum scenarios. It will also feature a separate hepatology transplant rotation at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (Omaha, NE). In addition, the fellows will have concomitant research exposure during all three years of the fellowship.
Our mission is to emphasize the concepts of graded and progressive responsibility under the guidance and supervision of our faculty to facilitate life-long learning. Our goal is to graduate gastroenterologists capable of succeeding in any type of independent setting, either academic or clinically based.
We aim to expose our fellows to a large volume of clinical cases, gastroenterology procedures, research opportunities, as well as a variety of educational didactic conferences. This will fulfill our intention to produce self-sufficient and autonomous gastroenterologists. The fellows will therefore be prepared for the forthcoming challenges and will be able to pursue a career that fosters life-long learning.
Our primary training location is the innovative Sanford Center for Digestive Health which is a new facility recently completed in July 2024. It is an impressive 45,000 square foot expanse that houses both clinical and procedural sections, along with an up-to-date simulator hub as well as a specific designated fellowship focused area.
This facility is located on the Sanford Health Medical Center Sioux Falls, SD campus and is part of the Sanford Health enterprise system which encompasses 47 medical centers, over 200 clinics, approximately 3,000 physicians and advance practice providers. The Sanford Health Medical Center campus is a 500 plus bed non-profit tertiary care center that includes designated Heart and Children’s Hospitals as well as a cancer center.
The Sanford Gastroenterology Department features a robust inpatient GI hospitalist unit as well as an outpatient endoscopy unit that can generate up to 85 procedures daily. Furthermore, we have inpatient hepatology cases that are managed by our hepatology faculty. These distinctive health care components give our fellows a strong foundation and exposure to a wide range of inpatient and outpatient experiences.
Our ultimate objective is to inspire and educate gastroenterology fellows to allow everyone to develop their own distinctive skill sets and practice styles as they transform into fully trained gastroenterologists.
Thank you again for your time and your kind consideration!
Jeffrey A. Murray, MD FACG, FACP
Gastroenterology Fellowship Program Director