Endocrinology Fellowship | Cleveland Clinic

Be a leader in the clinical practice of endocrinology, endocrine surgery, and laparoscopic surgery.

Cleveland Clinic's Fellowship Training Program in the Endocrinology & Metabolism Institute is designed to provide you with:

Excellent training in the clinical and surgical practice of all endocrinology disorders, diabetes, endocrine surgery, and metabolic disorders.
The opportunity to work with experienced investigators on basic or clinical research projects.

Cleveland Clinic is ranked as one of the nation's top hospitals by U.S. News & World Report.

The high volume and complexity of cases in our Institute provide fellows with an optimal environment to gain the highest level of training and expertise. The skills and abilities gained through this program will provide a solid foundation to excel as leaders in the practice of endocrinology.

Available Fellowship Programs

Endocrinology

Welcome to the Endocrinology Fellowship Training Program at Cleveland Clinic

Our program offers exposure to a diverse patient population affected by endocrine disorders and is designed to deliver a well-rounded clinical and research training to prepare fellows for the extent and complexity of clinical practice of this wonderful sub-specialty. It exposes fellows to a broad spectrum of endocrine disorders of the thyroid, lipid, bone metabolism, reproductive endocrinology, neuroendocrinology, diabetes mellitus, obesity, pituitary and adrenal disorders.

Cleveland Clinic's forty staff endocrinologists, serve as teachers and mentors. Their various clinical and academic backgrounds result in an exceptional depth and breadth of clinical expertise and research opportunities for our fellows who are fully integrated into all aspects of our academically-diverse program.

The goal of this two-year training program is for fellows to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for providing ethical, humanistic, cost-effective care for patients with endocrine disorders in both the inpatient and ambulatory settings.

The Endocrinology Fellowship Training Program accepts three applicants per year and sponsors J1 and H1b visas.

In order to comply with the requirements for sub-specialty board certification in endocrinology, metabolism, and diabetes by the American Board of Internal Medicine, applicants must successfully complete three years of residency training in internal medicine before entering the fellowship.

Program Director: Christian Nasr, MD
Associate Program Directors: Divya Yogi-Morren, MD and Sangeeta Kashyap, MD

Application and Contact Information

For any questions regarding Endocrinology and Metabolism Institute fellowship programs, please contact Joni Scott, DBA at 216.445.9096, 216-312-0393, or scottj4@ccf.org.

How to Apply for a Cleveland Clinic Fellowship Position in Endocrinology

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) developed ERAS (The Electronic Residency Application Service), to transmit fellowship applications, letters of recommendation, transcripts, and other supporting credentials from applicants and ERAS Fellowships Document Office (EFDO) to fellowship program directors using the Internet. We only accept applications that have been submitted through ERAS. Please do not send any application material via fax, mail or email, as it will not be included in your application.

The deadline for submitting a complete application is September 27, 2021. Failure to submit your completed application by this deadline may impact your application review. Applicants selected for an interview will be notified via email. Interviews will be scheduled for October 6 and 20, 2021. A completed application must include the following:

Application
Picture (not required, but appreciated)
CV
Personal statement
Three (3) Letters of Recommendation, including one from your program director
Dean's Letter – MSPE
Medical School Transcript
USMLE Transcript for MD and COMLEX for DO
ECFMG Report (if applicable)

Foreign medical graduates will need to have completed a US-based residency program in Internal Medicine prior to joining the fellowship program. Fellowship period begins July 1, 2021.

How does ERAS Fellowship application work?

The ERAS application is made up of three components:

The applicant website MyERAS
The Dean's Office Workstation (DWS) used by EFDO
The Program Director's Workstation (PDWS)

Using a web browser, applicants complete an application, select programs, and create and assign supporting documents using a secure site. Applicants submit these files to ERAS for processing.

The ERAS Fellowships Document Office (EFDO) staff uses the DWS to scan and store the applicant's medical school transcripts, letters of recommendation, and photograph to transmit these files to the ERAS Post Office. Cleveland Clinic will connect to the ERAS Post Office and download applications using the Program Director's Workstation (PDWS).

When can an applicant get started?

On June 10, 2021, applicants receive ERAS token
On July 7, 2021 ERAS is open for applicants to start submitting applications to programs at 9 a.m. EST.
On July 21, 2021 fellowship programs start reviewing applications at 9 a.m. EST.
On May 31, 2022 ERAS 2022 season ends at 5 p.m. EST.

Program Structure

The duration of the fellowship is 2 years. The typical schedule is a combination of 12 modules per year. Each module is 4-5 weeks long.

First year fellow:

13-weeks of in-patient service designed in 2-week blocks. Note: 1st year fellows will not be assigned to this service until after the completion of the Internal Medicine Board Exam
7-weeks of back-up service designed in 2-week blocks.
21-weeks of Continuity Clinic, Research, and Specialty Rotations (2-4 half days of each per week) including 7-8 weeks per year at the Stephanie Tubbs Jones clinic designed in 2-week blocks.
7-weeks of Procedures designed in 2-week blocks
3-weeks (15 days) of vacation time and five (5) personal days each academic year.

Second year fellow:

6-weeks of in-patient service designed in 2-week blocks.
10-weeks of backup service designed in 2-week blocks.
22-weeks of Continuity, Research, and Specialty Clinics (3-4 half-days of each per week) including 8-weeks at the Stephanie Tubbs Jones clinic per year designed in two-week blocks.
8-weeks of Procedure service designed in two week blocks.
2-weeks of electives (optional)
3-weeks (15 days) of vacation time and five (5) personal days each academic year.

Curriculum

In-Patient rotation

Hospital consult service rotation: This rotation takes place at Cleveland Clinic Main Campus. The endocrinology hospital consult service involves extensive inpatient exposure to the full spectrum of problems in endocrinology and metabolism including disorders of the thyroid, adrenal, hypothalamus, pituitary, parathyroid glands, endocrine hypertension, metabolic bone and calcium disorders, and type 1 and 2 diabetes mellitus. The educational purpose of this rotation is for the fellow to:

Gain experience and achieve competency in the care of in-hospital endocrine disorders.
Gain experience and achieve competency in the treatment and management of acute and chronic endocrine disorders in the hospital setting.
Perform in a leadership role in organizing the team, receiving consultations, distributing consultations to other team members and supervising students and residents on the service.

During the rotation, fellows are expected to work with an assigned staff endocrinologist and other team members including residents, medical students and/or nurse practitioners. The fellow receives consultations, distributes them to team members, maintains list of active consultations, and ensures appropriate hand-over of cases. We work closely with our Diabetes Care Team which is our nurse practitioner team for inpatient diabetes consults. Some examples of consults: diabetes (post-op, transplant, TPN/enteral feeds, islet transplant, post-bypass surgery, insulin pumps); thyroid function abnormalities (thyroid storm, myxedema coma, amiodarone induced thyroid disorders…); diabetes insipidus; hyper and hypocalcemia; pheochromocytoma; carcinoid/neuroendocrine; Cushing’s syndrome; adrenal insufficiency; hypoglycemia. The fellow is responsible for the initial evaluation of the patient and development of an initial management plan. The H&P are presented to the attending staff and feedback is provided to the fellow. The fellow also initially supervises the H&P of the students and residents and does rounds on a daily basis to follow his/her patients. Patient census is usually about 15-25 patients. The hospital fellow takes overnight call from home 3 nights per week and 1 weekend night (Saturday) while on the hospital rotation. Attending core curriculum lectures and journal club meetings are mandatory for all fellows. Fellows are allowed protected time to attend lectures/didactics even when on Hospital Service. Fellows have one weekend day off per week while on hospital service.

Ambulatory Rotations

Continuity clinics: all the continuity clinics take place at Cleveland Clinic Main Campus. Fellows work with an assigned precepting physician in three to four half-day blocks per week when not on hospital service. The fellow is responsible for the initial evaluation of the patient and the development of the management plan. The HPI is then presented to the precepting physician and feedback is provided to the fellow. All fellows have their endocrine continuity clinic spanning over the 2-years of fellowship training. This ensures them the opportunity to follow patients long enough to witness the natural history of the endocrine disorder and its therapy unfold. There is a combination of new patients and follow-up visits. New visits are allocated 60-minutes and follow up visits are 30-minutes. The clinic half-day is scheduled from 8:00AM to noon during the 2-week block two to three half-days per week. There is no weekday night call coverage during this rotation. The fellow is responsible for following up on results and phone, MyChart encounters generated after these visits. This allows for fellow autonomy and accountability.
Back-up rotation: fellows attend four half-day morning continuity clinics per week and are the dedicated “back-up” person for the hospital service fellow if help is needed. The back-up fellow will cover night calls 3 times per week including one weekend night (Sunday).
Sub-specialty rotations: the program emphasis is on ambulatory sub-specialty training, which reflects the fact that most of the contemporary practice of endocrinology and metabolism occurs in the outpatient setting. During the outpatient rotations, fellows rotate in three to four half-day blocks per week through all sub-specialty teaching clinics (including thyroid, pituitary, adrenal, weight management, calcium, gestational diabetes and more) where they focus on pragmatic and scholarly approaches to diagnostic and therapeutic endocrinology. In all rotations, fellows primarily see new consultations, working one-on-one with a staff endocrinologist who is an expert in that sub-specialty.
Procedure week: fellows are also trained in ultrasonography of the thyroid, the post-surgical thyroid bed, cervical lymph node mapping and performing fine needle aspiration. To ensure that all the fellows receive adequate training, a fellow is dedicated to perform all the necessary procedures under direct supervision by an experienced faculty member. By the end of their training, most fellows-in-training would have completed more than 100 ultrasounds of the thyroid and thyroid bed, and performed more than 50 FNAs of thyroid nodules and cervical nodes/masses.
Stephanie Tubbs Jones Rotation: STJ rotation for short. This is a two-week rotation. Wednesday and Thursday afternoons are dedicated to seeing patients at STJ with one of our core faculty. This is an excellent opportunity to learn “bread-and-butter” endocrinology.
Electives: some electives that fellows are able/encouraged to choose from are: pediatric endocrinology, nuclear medicine, lipid clinic in preventive cardiology, laboratory medicine, pathology, transgender clinic, reproductive endocrinology, PCOS/women’s health, obesity/medical weight management, and endocrine surgery.

Educational Activities

There are several regularly scheduled educational activities in the department for fellows:

Core curriculum lectures
Case presentations
Endocrine grand rounds
Monthly pituitary tumor board
Monthly adrenal/Neuroendocrine tumor board
Monthly thyroid tumor board
Monthly calcium tumor board
Board questions sessions
Wednesday didactic sessions
Major journal club
Minor journal club
Research meeting

Weekly Endocrine Grand Rounds

The Monday Endocrine Grand Rounds is attended by faculty, fellows, and providers from other specialties, house staff, and students. The topics discussed at this conference are clinically relevant, but may include newer developments in the basic sciences, which are of increasing importance to a clinician. The fellows have an opportunity to present interesting cases they have seen and discuss a related area of diagnosis or therapy. Research protocols and results are discussed as well.

Journal Club

Journal Club follows Endocrine Grand Rounds every Monday. Each week, fellows gather to discuss a group of recent articles they believe are of relevance. Often, this conference allows the opportunity to compare the content of the literature with "what we really do." The focus is very clinical and the goal is to stay updated on a broad range of topics. Fellows often cover articles in depth. A core curriculum lecture is given by a faculty member following EGR.

Research Seminar

The Monday morning Research Conference covers new research by fellows at Cleveland Clinic. Members of the Endocrine Metabolism Institute and visiting scientists present both work that is in progress and new developments. The emphasis is on high-quality, cutting-edge science. Fellows also have the opportunity the Annual AACE/Cleveland Clinic Endocrine Board Review Course and the Annual Cleveland Clinic Diabetes Day. All fellows present at national endocrine meetings.

Didactic Lectures

These lectures are part of the Monday morning conference series. Lectures are given by endocrine faculty and/or invited speakers. Additional lecture topics will be added as deemed appropriate by the faculty. Examples of such topics are:

Insulin: synthesis, regulation, and molecular mechanism of action
Developmental endocrinology (growth and development, sexual differentiation, pubertal maturation)
Genetics (selected endocrine disorders)
Principles of hormone action and signal transduction pathways
Creation, validation, and use of laboratory assays
Immunology of endocrine disorders
Pathogenesis of diabetes mellitus and insulin resistance
Pancreas transplantation
Non-genomic actions of steroid hormones
Radionuclide scanning and Radiation Safety
Thyroid ultrasound day
Reproductive endocrinology
Transgender medicine
Pregnancy and endocrine disorders
Obesity medicine
Pituitary disorders (pituitary adenomas, interpreting pituitary MRI)
Dynamic endocrine testing
Adrenal disorders (primary hyperaldosteronism, adrenal Cushing’s, adrenal nodules)
Neuroendocrine disorders
Financial planning
Billing and coding

Annual Endocrinology Board Review Course

The American Association of Clinical Endocrinology/Cleveland Clinic Endocrinology Board Review Course is directed to practicing endocrinologists and other physicians with an interest in endocrinology, metabolism and diabetes. The goal of this course is to provide the participants an intensive preparation for the endocrinology and metabolism board examination. Topics covered during the Endocrine Board Review are:

Endocrinology, including diabetes control and complications
Nuclear imaging
Thyroid disorders
Endocrine pathology
Hypo- and hyperadrenalism
Endocrine hypertension
Osteoporosis
Nephrolithiasis
Hypogonadism
Calcium disorders
Transplantation
Pituitary disorders
Important pediatric endocrine disorders and pregnancy
Genetics

The lecture format will be heavily weighted to board simulation. An interactive Audience Response System is employed to facilitate audience participation. A comprehensive syllabus will be provided. All fellows in training are given the opportunity to attend.

Annual Diabetes Day

A course designed to summarize and present the latest knowledge in the management of diabetes to busy practitioners. Areas recently covered during Diabetes Day conference include:

Combination therapy
Treatment in hospital setting
Management and prevention of complications
Peculiarities in minority ethnic groups and adolescents
Newer as well as future management options

Pituitary Day

This is a one day symposium with a different theme each year that provides an overview of innovations and advances in the field of pituitary disease including evaluation, diagnosis, treatment and prevention. It includes didactics and case-based talks and panel discussions by experts in the field.

Thyroid Day

This is a one day course presented by the Cleveland Clinic Endocrinology and Metabolism Institute that provides up-to-date reviews in the management of thyroid diseases. It includes didactics and case-based talks and panel discussions by experts in the field.

Research Training

Research is a significant part of the training of an endocrinologist. Endocrine fellows are given research opportunities and responsibilities, with an expectation to have at least one scholarly article published in a peer-reviewed journal during their program.

Each trainee meets with the program director, associate program directors and our research director during his or her first year to discuss research opportunities and is assigned an appropriate mentor. The research experience is expected to occupy 30% of the fellow's time during the first year and 30-35% during the second year. Our fellows are provided the time and support needed to complete projects and the expectation is that the experience will lead to first authorship on a poster or presentation at a national meeting. All endocrinology fellows are required to take the Investigator Human Subject Research Education course offered by Cleveland Clinic in addition to CITI and HIPAA, online education courses.

There is a seven-bed, NIH-supported, Adult General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) located in the Cleveland Clinic hospital. Additionally, out-patient beds are available for GCRC studies. Many inpatient clinical research studies are performed by Division members on the GCRC.

Meet Our Staff

Our faculty has wide ranging research interests that cross the entire spectrum of endocrinology. Details of their academic and clinical interests can be found by clicking on the faculty member's name for more information.

Teaching opportunities

Our fellows are frequently involved in teaching residents, medical students and rotators. In addition to teaching rotators on the hospital service and giving scheduled lectures to the internal medicine residents, endocrine fellows are expected to give resident didactics every other Thursday while on the STJ rotation. Furthermore, there are several teaching opportunities through GME whereby fellows can become clinical instructors for the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine (CCLCM), among other educational programs.

Fellows who are interested in cultivating a career as a Clinician Educator can enroll in the Education Track for the Cleveland Clinic Endocrinology Fellowship program. This program assists fellows interested in a career focused on medical education to develop excellence in teaching in keeping with one of the core values of the Cleveland Clinic which is the further education of those who serve.

Objectives

Training in the science and principles of medical education
Development of effective didactic and clinical teaching skills
Development of skills in developing and implementing curriculum and methods of assessment
Facilitate scholarship in medication education
To provide opportunities for mentorship with staff who have developed their careers within medical education

Meet Our Fellows

Saif Borgan, MD

Medical Education: Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland - Medical University of Bahrain
Residency: University of Central Florida - College of Medicine, Orlando, FL
Second-year fellow

Alimitha-Kodali Monali, MD

Medical Education: Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Belgaum, India
Residency: Jacobi Medical Center – Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY
Second-year fellow

Noura Nachawi, MD

Medical Education: University of Damascus Faculty of Medicine Syrian Arab Republic
Residency: Saint Joseph Mercy Hospital Ann Arbor, MI
Second-year fellow

Khaled Alsibai, MD

Medical Education: Alfaisal University College of Medicine; Saudi Arabia
Residency: St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine; Boston, MA, US
First-year fellow

Michelle Lundholm, MD

Medical Education: Northwestern University The Feinberg School of Medicine
Residency: Loyola University Medical Center Maywood, IL, United States
First-year fellow

Lily Tranchito, DO

Medical Education: Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine
Residency: Case Western Reserve University/University Hospitals Cleveland, OH, United States
First-year fellow

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