Rao recruited to launch GHSU Digestive Health Center
AUGUSTA, Ga. â€" Dr. Satish S.C. Rao, Professor of Medicine and Director of Neurogastroenterology and GI Motility at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, has been named Chief of the Section of Gastroenterology and Hepatology and founding Director of the Digestive Health Center at Georgia Health Sciences University.
(Media-Newswire.com) - AUGUSTA, Ga. – Dr. Satish S.C. Rao, Professor of Medicine and Director of Neurogastroenterology and GI Motility at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, has been named Chief of the Section of Gastroenterology and Hepatology and founding Director of the Digestive Health Center at Georgia Health Sciences University.
Rao, President of the American Neurogastroenterology and Motility Society, will lead an aggressive initiative to expand the university’s capabilities in treating digestive disorders which affect 1 in 4 Americans, said Dr. Michael Madaio, Chairman of the GHSU Department of Medicine. He joins the faculty Sept. 1.
“The area of digestive disorders is of great importance to the patient population we serve and we need to serve them better by growing resources, particularly for those with complex problems,” Madaio said. “We also want to enhance patient referral support to physicians in our community and state.”
Rao’s success at helping build a multidisciplinary digestive health center in Iowa combined with his acumen at integrating a busy clinical practice and clinical research make him a logical choice to lead this initiative, Madaio said. He plans to work closely with colleagues in surgery, urology, otolaryngology and neurology to create a model system that serves patients and referring physicians as it advances the understanding, treatment and prevention of digestive disease.
His expertise includes non-cardiac chest pain; paralysis of the stomach ( gastroparesis ), which reduces the stomach’s ability to empty its contents; irritable bowel syndrome; fecal incontinence; constipation; gas and bloating; as well as problems resulting from poor communication between the brain and gut. Rao discovered one such disconnect, called dyssynergic defecation, which causes constipation in one-third of Americans by impairing muscle control. He also pioneered the biofeedback therapy that effectively treats 80 percent of these patients.
Rao’s research has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health for more than 15 years. He received the three highest honors from American Gastroenterological Association: the Distinguished Clinician Award in 2003, the Masters Award for Outstanding Clinical Research in 2006 and the Distinguished Educator Award in 2007. Rao also received the International Foundation for Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders 2009 Senior Investigator-Clinical Science Award as well as the American College of Gastroenterology’s highest research award, the Auxillary Research Award in 2005. He chaired the American Motility Society’s Clinical Practice Session from 2004-10 and was the American College of Gastroenterology’s Governor from Iowa in 2009. He serves on the editorial board of Annals of Gastroenterology & Hepatology.
Rao, an accomplished educator and mentor, has been included among Castle Connolly Medical, Ltd.’s America’s Top Doctors and Best Doctors in America since 2001 and the Consumers’ Research Council of America’s Top Physicians since 2003.
He is a graduate of Osmania Medical College at Osmania University in Hyderabad, India, and completed graduate medical education and fellowship training at several United Kingdom hospitals before being named a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London. He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Sheffield in the U.K. in GI motility and completed a fellowship in advanced gastrointestinal endoscopy and therapeutics at the U.K.’s Royal Liverpool Hospital.
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