Curriculum & Training

The consult fellow will direct a consult team that includes a medical resident and often a medical student. The fellow will see patients with a wide variety of metabolic and endocrine abnormalities and will be responsible for teaching the junior members of the team.

All consultation cases are presented to and discussed with a full-time faculty member on daily rounds. Experience gained during this training period is broad and equips the fellow to approach endocrine disorders with confidence. Clinics include a continuity clinic, general endocrinology and diabetes.

Throughout training, fellows will have a dedicated weekly continuity clinic, in which patients are scheduled with the fellow as the care provider. These clinics are always staffed in person by an attending physician in endocrinology.

Additional continuity experiences include a weekly endocrinology clinic and a multidisciplinary diabetes clinic that take place throughout the entire fellowship period. Fellows also attend a wide variety of other outpatient clinics. The diversity of conditions is excellent.

Fellows are involved in the management of the private patients seen by the full-time Cedars-Sinai faculty, and they may evaluate patients in the busy practices of select clinical attending physicians.

At least one month each year, fellows attend a weekly general endocrinology clinic at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center — a county teaching hospital with a rich breadth of patients.

For eight months over the training period, fellows attend subspecialty clinics that include pituitary, reproductive endocrinology, bone, lipid disorders, menopause, and hypertension. They also attend a pediatric endocrinology clinic through Children's Hospital Los Angeles, and a general endocrinology clinic at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center. For two months per year, fellows will have a dedicated research block.

Conferences are attended by full-time and volunteer faculty, fellows, research associates and students. A number of distinguished visiting professors enrich the conference program, which includes:

• Board Review for Fellows: At this twice-a-month meeting, a faculty preceptor reviews board exam-type questions with the fellows.
• Carcinoid and Neuroendocrine Tumor Rounds: Challenging cases are presented and discussed in this monthly conference.
• Endocrine Grand Rounds: Major subjects in endocrinology are discussed by the faculty and distinguished visiting professors at weekly conferences.
• Endocrine Journal Club: These monthly sessions with clinical and research trainees and faculty provide insight into analysis of the endocrine literature, focusing on controversial topics or new therapies.
• Endocrinology and Metabolism, and Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute Conference: In this weekly seminar, diverse investigators present the results of their clinical or basic research.
• Endocrine Seminar Series: An interactive review of an endocrine topic with a faculty member and the fellows. Held every other week, it covers the full spectrum of endocrinology over the course of training.
• Hypertension Grand Rounds: This conference is a forum for numerous specialties to discuss various aspects of hypertension, including endocrine hypertension.
• Interdisciplinary Conference on Diabetes and Metabolism: A review of topics in diabetes management, using a case presentation and/or presentations by experts in the field.
• Interdisciplinary Pituitary Case Conference: In this monthly conference, difficult cases of pituitary disease are presented. This is an interdisciplinary conference with participation by clinicians and researchers in pathology, radiology and surgery, as well as endocrinology.
• Interesting Case of the Month Conference: In this conference, fellows present a particularly interesting case for the endocrinology faculty to consider. The meeting provides an opportunity to review clinical manifestations of the endocrine disease and discuss different diagnoses, diagnostic workups, interpretations of tests and management.
• Mini Endocrinology Epidemiology Seminars: Summer didactic series that covers research basics, including study design, ethical conduct of research, grantsmanship, the institutional review board process and statistics.
• MRI Rounds: In this weekly conference, pituitary endocrinologists, pituitary surgeons, and pituitary radiologists review imaging on patients from the weekly clinics.
• Thyroid Cancer Rounds: This monthly interdisciplinary conference features presentations and discussions of challenging cases as a way to highlight key topics in diagnosis and management of thyroid cancer.

All fellows will attend a weekly didactic diabetes series over the first three months of training and a series of lectures to understand the basics required for being successful in research. Senior fellows are sent to Endocrine University, a one-week didactic conference at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, sponsored by the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. Regional and national conferences on diabetes, pituitary disease, thyroid disease, and other topics are available.