Gastroenterology Flashcards

What is Gastroenterology?

Gastroenterology is the branch of medicine that studies the digestive tract which incorporates the esophagus, stomach, and small intestine, through to the colon and rectum. Gastroenterology also includes the study of the bile ducts, gallbladder, pancreas, and liver.

You might be referred to a gastroenterologist if you have symptoms such as abdominal pain and discomfort, bleeding in the digestive tract, constipation and diarrhea, difficulty swallowing, hemorrhoids, upset stomach, nausea, vomiting, ulcers or unexplained weight loss.

Typically gastroenterologists diagnose illnesses including diverticular disease and other colon diseases, (e.g., Crohn's disease, polyps, colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, colitis), Gallbladder disease, Hiatal hernias, Liver disease (e.g., jaundice, hepatitis,), Malabsorption disorders (e.g., lactose intolerance, celiac disease,), and Cancer (e.g., stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer, colorectal cancer, liver cancer).

Gastrointestinal complications are linked to obesity and on the other end of the spectrum, gastroenterologists also work closely with eating disorder patients. ED patients present with a range of gastrointestinal tract complications due to their chaotic eating, binging, starvation, and laxative abuse. With eating disorders and obesity on the rise, and an aging US population the demand for gastroenterologists continues to outstrip supply.

Did you know?

Eating disorders are on the rise in the US with an estimated 10% of female college students secretly juggling school and college with anorexia, bulimia or some form of severely disordered eating known as EDNOS. Eating disorders don’t just cause havoc with the GI tract, the damage is throughout the entire body including the oral cavity, teeth, heart, liver, kidneys, respiratory system, skin, hair, circulatory system, and bones.

Having ravaged the body, EDs ravage the mind, often co-existing with other psychiatric disorders such as depression and substance abuse, making excelling in college, virtually impossible. School’s hard enough without dealing with a serious mental and physical illness. ED’s can take a grip very quickly following even very short crash diets or negative social influences so don’t be tempted, stick to healthy eating and a healthy attitude.

Careers in Gastroenterology

It’s a long road to becoming a gastroenterologist, in fact, it will take thirteen years of education. You’ll need to take a three-year pre-med or science course or a course that has biology, chemistry, physics, and calculus modules. You then need to get into med school by taking the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT).  In med school, you’ll take general medical courses and rotations including gastroenterology. After that there’s a three-year program in general internal medicine and following that to become a gastroenterologist you’ll have to take a gastroenterology fellowship. This is a further intense two to three-year program before becoming board certified. And the learning doesn’t stop there! Gastroenterologists are required to continue their learning to renew their license.

If you’d like to become a gastroenterology nurse (often known as an endoscopy nurse) or a gastroenterology nurse practitioner you’ll need to complete a four-year nursing degree and successfully complete the NCLEX exam to become an RGN. You then need to work for a minimum of 4,000 hours gaining experience working with gastroenterology patients, after which you may apply to take a certifying exam with two professional references. On successful completion, you will have the  title of Certified Gastroenterology Specialty Nurse (CGSN) along with better job opportunities.

Gastroenterologists don’t have the best of reputations and are associated with some of the most unpleasant medical procedures, namely endoscopies and colonoscopies. However, gastroenterologists love their jobs and cite a number of reasons. First of all, most patients, if they can’t be cured, can have their symptoms significantly managed, which is what every doctor wants to do and is simply not the case in many branches of medicine. Death features very little in the professional daily lives of gastroenterologists and they also cite the variety of their work in that they treat the whole of the gastrointestinal tract including the liver, gallbladder, and pancreas. Moreover, gastroenterology nurses and doctors often benefit from regular hours as much of their work is in outpatient settings.

An additional benefit of this branch of medicine is the very competitive compensation, gastroenterologists earn in excess of $363,000, per year. The median salary of a gastroenterology nurse is $77,000 whilst the median salary of a gastroenterology nurse practitioner is in excess of $103,000.  

If you think you have what it takes to enter gastroenterological medicine then take a little time to visit The American College of Gastroenterology or The American Gastroenterological Association. You can also take a moment to watch this video which features Dr. David. Magee explaining what a gastroenterologist does.

Learning Gastroenterology

Studying to become a gastroenterologist or a gastroenterological nurse can be intense. There’s a vast amount of medical and scientific knowledge you need to commit to memory and you need to be a problem solver to correctly diagnose diseases and implement treatment plans.

When you are busy clocking up hours to qualify as an RGN with a CGSN accreditation or working long shifts to qualify as a certified gastroenterologist you need an effective learning tool to boost your study time.

Brainscape will allow you to build on key foundational medical knowledge whilst you focus on delivering excellence in clinical practice.

Gastroenterology in Brainscape

There are thousands of flashcards dedicated to Gastroenterology in Brainscape, all prepared by top students and professors. If you’re learning gastroenterology you might also find other pages helpful such as physiology, oncology, pharmacology, endocrinology, anatomy, nutrition, microbiology, pathology, histology, genetics, and immunology.

If you need to improve your scores to get into nursing college then take a look at the AP Biology and AP Chemistry study guides in Brainscape. Alternatively, if med school is your goal then the MCAT study guide is helping thousands of students get the scores they need.

There’s also the opportunity to author your own flashcards and become a valued contributor. Authoring your own flashcards improves the memory trace and when you are complete, it’s your choice to share your notecards or keep them for your own personal use.

Learn faster with Brainscape

Brainscape’s revolutionary learning system known as Confidence-Based Repetition or CBR is exciting news for medical students.

Thousands of doctors and nurses credit Brainscape as being absolutely key in their learning experience and achievements from AP Exams to get into grad school, to MCAT scores for med school entry, and helping them study throughout  medical school.

Whilst other students just have lectures, as a medical student, you’ll be faced with a challenging syllabus and crazy rotations. Medical students rely on Brainscape’s CBR system which allows students to learn twice as fast and remember longer.

The CBR system designed by Brainscape incorporates three proven learning methods: spaced repetition, active recall, and metacognition. In practice the three work in tandem to produce outstanding results. The CBR system has been meticulously devised by experts however it is exceptionally user-friendly.

The Brainscape system uses spaced repetition in its flashcard format of delivery. Thousands of studies have proven this is an effective learning method and it lends itself well to computer-aided learning tools. The method of showing bite-sized pieces of information at spaced intervals is proven to be highly effective. It’s also much easier to concentrate for longer when you study this way.

Secondly, the CBR system uses active recall, this is the method of retrieving information. Some computer-aided learning tools will show you answers in patterns so you recognize the correct answer. This is not an effective method of learning, with Brainscape you’ll have to work hard to retrieve answers and when you do so you strengthen both the memory trace and the neural pathways. The result is that the information is more easily retrievable later when you need it whether it's in class, in an exam, or in clinical practice.   

What makes the CBR system unique, however, is its use of the individual learner’s metacognitive response to fuel the algorithm which makes it the most powerful education engine on the market.

Whilst other computer-aided learning tools will show you flashcards randomly, Brainscape shows you cards with exact precision to provide optimal learning. The system in practice is very user-friendly, after each card you spend a few seconds to consider your understanding of the subject matter and you leave a record from 1-5.  

You might have just reviewed a flashcard on Fatty Liver Disease, you thought you knew the subject matter reasonably but not that well, so you leave a record of “3”. The algorithm will know to show you that card again soon to improve your understanding but it will prioritize showing the flashcard on Celiac disease which you scored a “1”.  Cards that you score a “5” will be shown only as a recap so you won’t waste a second of your study time.

With traditional learning and other computer-aided learning tools, you always waste time going over content you already know. This remarkable learning tool is proving invaluable to thousands of doctors and nurses so start boosting your learning with Brainscape today.   

How to get started

Getting started with Brainscape is easy. Simply browse the decks below and you’ll see topics from Celiac disease, Cirrhosis, Malnutrition and Malabsorption, Fatty Liver disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and Hepatitis. So dig in, now!

Want to make your own flashcards? If you’d like to start learning your individual coursework and use the Brainscape system then it’s free and easy. Just click “make flashcards” at the top of the page to get started today.

Brainscape is making the difference for thousands of medical students, nurses and doctors across America and beyond. The Brainscape team wishes you all the very best in your Gastroenterology studies and career.