Physicians with difficult patient scenarios regularly bring their questions to the AGA Community to seek advice from colleagues about therapy and disease management options, best practices, and diagnoses. The following is a preview of a recent popular clinical discussion:
From John Fang, MD: Update on feeding tubes: Indications and troubleshooting complications.
Gastroenterologists are uniquely positioned to manage individuals with feeding tubes as their training underscores principles in digestion, nutrition support, and enteral tube placement. Adequate management of individuals with feeding tubes and, importantly, the complications that arise from feeding tube use and placement require both right education and experience. Therefore, gastroenterologists are well suited to both place and manage individuals with feeding tubes in the long term.
Questions:
1. Are gastroenterologist best suited for placement and management of feeding tubes (vs. interventional radiology or surgery)?
2. Are gastroenterologists adequately trained place and manage feeding tubes?
3. What are the most difficult complication(s) of feeding tubes to manage?
The conversation stems from the February In Focus article from The New Gastroenterologist, “Update on feeding tubes: Indications and troubleshooting complications.”
See how AGA members responded and join the discussion: https://community.gastro.org/posts/23639.
