Dr. Motaz Ashkar joined the Department of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology as an Assistant Professor in July, 2020.
Dr. Ashkar trained and obtained his medical degree from King Abdul-Aziz University in Saudi Arabia, one of the country’s premier medical schools. He then moved to the US and undertook his internal medicine training at St. Elizabeth Medical Center/Tufts University in Boston where he excelled, first co-chairing the Internal Medicine Residents Committee and subsequently the Internal Medicine Training Program Evaluation Committee. Dr. Ashkar’s training at Tufts was also notable in his receipt of multiple honors including best intern, an award for resident teaching, and an invited lecture in 2014 at the National Pancreas Foundation in Baltimore, Maryland. He was also cited as a notable teacher by Tufts medical students for two consecutive years. During this time, he also participated in multiple poster presentations at the American College of Gastroenterology’s annual meetings in 2012, 2013, and 2014. After completing his year as Chief Resident, he matched into the Gastroenterology fellowship program at Washington University in 2016. In 2017, under the mentorship of Drs. Dominic Reeds and Gregory Sayuk, he began the Washington University Clinical Research Training Center’s Master of Science in Clinical Investigation program, for which his research project was colonoscopic surveillance & incidence of adenomas. Continuing his trajectory of excellence, Dr. Ashkar was invited to lecture at the 15th annual Galaxy of Gastroenterology meeting in 2017, presenting a clinical case discussion. Upon graduation from the Gastroenterology fellowship program and completion of his MSCI, Dr. Ashkar accepted an invitation to spend a year as an advanced pancreas fellow at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.