Ellen Scherl, MD, research director of the Jill Roberts Center for Inflammatory Bowel Disease at New York City-based Weill Cornell Medicine, spoke with NextServices President Praveen Suthrum about the future of the specialty.
Here are three insights from the interview, which is available here:
Note: Responses were edited for style and content.
Dr. Scherl on gastroenterology's place in healthcare: "I think that the future of ... gastroenterology is to reclaim our role in society and with individuals as healers. And for that to happen, we need to recognize that's not the way we as gastroenterologists are viewed."
Dr. Scherl on reclaiming that role: "[Patients] don't necessarily trust the field of gastroenterology or medicine, and we need to reclaim that. So, if we go back to the Greek 'heal' — which means to make whole — that is what comprehensive medicine is. I think that part of the future that telemedicine can help to accelerate is by making those connections so that we can reclaim healing for our individual patients and for communities at large."
Dr. Scherl on realizing one's role in healthcare: "We can't really heal unless we have that focus of who we are as defined by our most important connections — family, friends — and then we widen it to our workplace, which is of course being redefined, and our patients and their families and friends."