While some shy away from change, others embrace it.
Latha Alaparthi, MD, president and chair of the board of directors of the Digestive Health Physicians Association in Silver Spring, Md., spoke with Becker's March 23 to discuss what she is most excited about regarding the future of gastroenterology.
Question: What are you most excited for in terms of the future of GI?
Dr. Latha Alaparthi: There's so many things to be excited about. That's been the most exciting thing about gastroenterology in general — it's always changing. Thanks to the innovators and the thinkers we have within our specialty, I don't think there's been a year that has gone by that there hasn't been significant changes in how I deliver care to my patients, which is good because that is how it should be. We should learn from [the past] and make changes as we move forward to improve.
In GI, I'm really excited about newer medications, [such as] other modes of delivery where there's cognitive behavioral therapy or alternative therapies for some of these psychosomatic issues that we tackle on a day to day basis and all the [artificial intelligence] and database delivery changes that we may make. I don't know what the data actually will bring us in terms of interventions that we can change, but I think we are just at the beginning of collecting data since [electronic health records] have become so widely adapted now. It'll be interesting to see that information play out in the next few years as well.