Starting July 1, 2017, Dr. Millie Long assumes directorship of the GI Fellowship Program from Dr. Ryan Madanick, who served as Director from 2009-2017. Dr. Madanick’s tenure saw the graduation of 30 core fellows and 11 advanced fellows, as well as bringing our program into the 21st century to be more flexible and responsive.
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Millie Long will take over as GI Fellowship Program Director starting July 1, 2017. She assumes this role from Dr. Ryan Madanick, who served as Program Director with distinction from 2009-2017.
We congratulate Dr. Ryan Madanick on his successful 8 year tenure, which included 30 core fellows and 11 advanced fellows. A review of his accomplishments over this periods demonstrates that he has literally brought our fellowship into the 21st century in a number of ways. Our program is now more flexible and responsive to individual trainees’ interests and goals than at any time in our history, and has evolved to the changing realities of our profession outside our walls. In addition to our three core fellowship tracks — basic science, clinical outcomes/epidemiology, and clinical– we now also offer advanced (fourth year) training in inflammatory bowel disease, esophageal disease, advanced therapeutic endoscopy, and transplant hepatology. Fellows now see patients in clinic and GI procedures at three core sites (Memorial Hospital, UNC Endoscopy Center at Meadowmont, and Hillsborough Medical Office Building), giving them exposure to a wide swath of patients with a full spectrum of GI diseases, from the straightforward to the complex. Two of these three venues were pioneered as training sites during Dr. Madanick’s tenure. Senior fellows now have the opportunity to tailor their personal clinic to meet their specific interests, currently including inflammatory bowel disease, esophageal disease, motility disorders, and hepatology. Beyond improving fellows’ direct patient care experiences, Dr. Madanick also revamped the didactic curriculum and developed a formalized pathway for trainees interested in medical education. We now have rigorous processes for evaluation and modification of the curriculum. Furthermore, he successfully overhauled the GI fellowship interview process; this past year was among our most successful matches ever, and he has annually delivered some of the finest fellowship classes in the US.
Dr. Long, whose clinical and research interests are in inflammatory bowel disease and prevention, aims to continue our outstanding tradition of preparing fellows for productive careers in academia, community practice, and industry. Dr. Long is a graduate of UNC, where she was an intercollegiate swimmer and a Morehead Scholar. She received her internal medicine training at UAB, where she also served as chief resident. She then completed a general GI fellowship, and NIH funded epidemiology and outcomes fellowship with an MSCR at the School of Public Health, as well as a fellowship in Preventive Medicine. Since that time, she has published widely in multiple aspects of inflammatory bowel disease.
As one of the 160+ fellows who have graduated from our programs to date, Dr. Long has big ideas for making our programs even better. She has already begun to develop plans for a formal career development curriculum that will support and educate fellows on career options early in their training. She is also interesting in enriching the nutrition curriculum, formalizing additional elective opportunities, and improving the process by which we evaluate fellows and give them feedback. She will work with Dr. Madanick, who will continue to serve as Vice-Chief for Education, to develop a formal clinician-educator track. As we note this change in the leadership of the fellowship, we thank Dr. Madanick for his service and welcome Dr. Long into her new role.