Dr. Dennis Chen joined the Department of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology as an Assistant Professor in August, 2020.
Dr. Chen completed his undergraduate training at Duke University followed by medical school training at the University Of Texas School of Medicine in San Antonio where he was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) society. He then joined the Internal Medicine Residency training program at University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) where he received the Bruce A. Jones Award for Outstanding House staff Spirit. Dr. Chen developed a passion for education as a medical resident through his active involvement in the University of Michigan Resident Education Committee and was very active in educating medical students and residents in practical aspects of gastroenterology and hepatology and on his own initiated a simulation education series where he spent time educating the trainees on the diseases of the GI tract and modes of diagnosing and treating using different endoscopic techniques. He was also an active participant in the Internal Medicine Intern Report at the University of Michigan where he taught the internal medicine interns evaluation and management of a variety of GI disorders utilizing case-based didactic sessions. During his fellowship, Dr. Chen completed the Community of Medical Educators in Training (CoMET) program. He was also a volunteer educator in the medical school and facilitated small groups for the first-year medical school GI sequence, a course that integrates GI pathophysiology and pathology with GI physiology and anatomy. As a Chief Fellow at Michigan Medicine, he helped reorganize their new core educational curriculum series for fellows and also organized a series of board review dinners hosted by the division and faculty volunteers to enhance fellows’ preparation for the GI boards and also foster a sense of community among fellows and faculty by encouraging interactions outside the confines of the clinical workday. He also served as a member of Michigan’s Fellowship Program Evaluation Committee in addition to his role as Chief Fellow. In 2019, Dr. Chen travelled to Ethiopia and spent a month at St. Paul’s Hospital and Millennium Medical College in Addis Ababa through a partnership between the GI Divisions at Michigan and St. Paul’s Hospital. He took an active role in educating the GI Fellows at St. Paul’s in endoscopic training and in their educational curriculum development. After completing his advanced endoscopy fellowship year at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, Dr. Chen joins the Interventional team at the Wash U Division of Gastroenterology.