Dr. Ashish Patel has a strong clinical and research interest in pediatric inflammatory bowel disease(IBD). In addition to a pediatric gastroenterology fellowship, Dr. Patel completed a specialty fellowship (awarded and funded by the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America) in pediatric IBD with Dr. Marla Dubinsky (Cedars-Sinai Los Angeles). Dr. Patel founded and continues to develop the multidisciplinary clinic as the foundation for a center of excellence in pediatric IBD (The Southwestern Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center at Children's Medical Center of Dallas). Currently, the outpatient clinic is supported by pediatric gastroenterologists, nurses, a registered dietician and a child psychologist. The current patient coverage area extends from El Paso to Louisiana and Oklahoma to San Antonio. Consultation has been provided to physicians and families as far away as Alabama, Georgia, California and Rhode Island. The center's goal is to provide cutting edge clinical care with an emphasis on clinical research.

In addition to outpatient clinical care, Dr. Patel spends twelve to fourteen weeks per year on the inpatient ward or consult services. On the inpatient service, Dr. Patel covers 18 hospital beds for a two week block while providing mentorship to the fellow on service in addition to the senior resident, two to three pediatric interns, and two to three medical students. Formal teaching rounds are conducted daily for 2-3 hours in addition to informal teaching in the form of lectures, physical exams, history taking, and reviewing and critiquing of written history and physicals.On the consult service, phone calls are fielded from outside primary care physicians with a wide range of gastroenterology questions in addition to providing gastroenterology support to all other services requesting a formal consult including the pediatric and neonatal intensive care units. 

Dr. Patel is actively involved in teaching on the nursing, medical student, resident, and fellow level. Specifically, he provides lectures focused on gastroenterology related topics during new nurse orientation, participates in the monthly teaching lectures for the medical students, provides lectures for the residents during the lunch conferences, in addition to serving as 'the expert' at Friday Morning Report. Dr. Patel works with the fellows individually in clinical education, in the form of rounds, direct education on core gastroenterology topics, teaching procedures, monthly journal club, and Monday morning report, an exercise that allows for the sharing of an interesting clinical challenge and providing a review of the current literature.

I have worked within our clinic, to develop Inflammatory Bowel Disease Competencies for the Clinical Nutrition Department at Children’s Medical Center of Dallas.

Dr. Patel and Dr Lilliene Chan have collaborated with our adult IBD colleagues to create a seemless transitions program and joined to create a monthly multidisciplinary adult and pediatric IBD conference. We are in the process of creating an IBD support group for children. Dr. Patel currently leads a parent support group for families with children with IBD.

Dr. Patel is the GI division lead in electronic medical records as well as serving on hosital wide committees like the Physician Advisory Committee, the Tissue and Transfusion Committee, the Mobile Device working group, the GI Operations wworking groups.

Dr. Patel participates in the recruitment of medical students for the UTSW medical school. He also participates in the recruitment of pediatric residents and pediatric gastroenterology fellows. He also interviews locally for his alma matter, Emory University.

Dr. Patel is actively involved in community activites, specifically theough the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America where he serves as vice-chair of the Medical Advisory Board as well as the medical director for Camp Oasis, a camp for children with IBD. He is also active in charitable organizations with the Indian community, serving on the planning committee for an annual pediatric health fair.