Surgery

Fellow Training Experience

Fellow Training

Goal of the fellowship

The goal of our fellowship training program is to equip trainees with the surgical, decision-making, and management skills required to navigate the entire transplant continuum—from evaluation to post-transplant care. Fellows are treated as colleagues and are integral to the workup, operative planning, execution, and post-operative management of hepatobiliary cases.

Rotational Training and Professional Development

Throughout the two-year fellowship, fellows rotate through liver, kidney, hepatobiliary, and donor services. As they progress, they achieve increasing autonomy in these procedures, culminating in an experience comparable to that of a junior faculty member—one of the most distinguishing features of our program.

Upon completing the fellowship, fellows have acquired comprehensive experience in every nuance of transplantation, including handling complex technical challenges that may arise. The UCLA fellowship experience closely mirrors that of a junior faculty member, making it one of the program's most distinctive and valuable features.

Clinical Experience

Fellows are Integrated into the entire transplant continuum caring for patients in a comprehensive multidisciplinary manner gaining experience in a high case volume in high case complexity environment. This exposure equips our graduates to tackle the entire spectrum of organ specific disease.

Fellow Training Experience

Involvement in Patient Care

Fellows actively participate in all aspects of patient care, including:

  • Evaluation and Patient Selection
  • Organ Recipient Matching
  • Post-operative Complication Recognition and Management
  • Immunosuppression
  • Management of High Acuity Patients
  • Complex Ethical Dilemmas
  • Complex Risk Stratification
Fellow Training Experience 11

Clinics & Specialized Care

Our fellows gain hands-on experience in a variety of clinical settings, including:

  • Pre and Post Liver Transplant
  • Hepatobiliary/Living Donor
  • Pre and Post Renal Transplant / Living Donor
  • Pre and Post Pancreas Transplant
  • Pre and Post Intestinal Transplant
Fellow Training Experience 3

Recipient Surgical Training

Fellows are exposed to a comprehensive spectrum of case types and operative scenarios, covering:

  • Liver Transplantation: Adult, pediatric, Bi-Caval, and Piggyback techniques
  • Kidney Transplantation: Adult and pediatric cases
  • Specialized Transplants: Veno-venous bypass, Redo-transplantation, and multiple organ transplants, including heart-liver, lung-liver, liver-kidney, and multivisceral procedures
  • Pancreas & Islet Transplantation
  • Vascular Reconstruction: All forms of vascular reconstruction during graft implantation

Donor Training & Organ Procurement

Organ procurement training provides fellows with experience in:

Fellow Training Experience 2
  • DCD and DBD Donors: Hands-on experience with both donation after cardiac death (DCD) and donation after brain death (DBD)
  • In Situ Donor Splits: Liver-specific donor split training
  • Living Donor Transplants: Techniques for living kidney donor transplantation
  • Back Table Preparation: Detailed preparation including vascular reconstruction

Educational Conferences & Didactics

Fellow Training Experience 1

Fellows participate in a variety of conferences and didactic sessions to deepen their knowledge and discuss case studies, including:

  • Patient Selection Committee: Evaluating and selecting appropriate candidates for transplant
  • Hepatology Conference
  • Pathology Conference
  • Transplant Morbidity and Mortality Conference
  • Hepatobiliary Tumor Board
  • Transplant Grand Rounds
  • Transplant Journal Club