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Girish Hiremath, MD

Title: Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Affiliation: Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville
Year entered into CEGIR training program: 2015
Mentor/s: Evan Dellon, MD MPH; Pablo Abonia, MD

Biosketch

Dr. Hiremath is a board certified pediatric gastroenterologist with a broad background in pediatrics, gastroenterology, global health, and research methods. His emphasis is on providing outstanding clinical care to his patients, and to conduct original translational research addressing some of the most challenging needs of individuals with eosinophilic gastrointestinal disorders, particularly eosinophilic esophagitis.

His clinical-translational eosinophilic esophagitis research focuses on:

  1. Understanding its epidemiology
  2. Applying advanced biomedical technologies to gain novel insights into its pathogenesis and molecular mechanisms
  3. To discover and to develop innovative non-invasive and/or minimally invasive approaches to diagnose and/or monitor its activity.

Dr. Hiremath's research has been recognized and supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) training grant, North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition (NASPGHAN), American College of Gastroenterology (ACG), American Gastroenterological Association (AGA), and the Consortium of Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Disease Researchers (CEGIR) training award.

Summary of current CEGIR projects

Dr. Hiremath’s research as a CEGIR trainee focuses on the development of a protocol to validate the online cohort (or group of patients who share specific characteristics) of EGID patients who are enrolled in the CEGIR contact registry. Validating this cohort will likely serve as an important step to use CEGIR contact registry for a variety of patient-oriented research and to disseminate EGID related information.

He has also recently conducted a study to better understand the unmet needs of EGID patients and caregivers. Analysis of the study data is currently underway with the goal of making recommendations for improved, patient-focused healthcare.

Publications as affiliated with CEGIR

Submitted three abstracts for presentation at Digestive Disease Week 2017. These abstracts are currently under review.

Q & A with Dr. Hiremath

How has CEGIR participation made a difference in your career, or how do you anticipate it will?

“CEGIR participation has allowed me to stay informed and participate in cutting-edge research being carried out in the field of EGIDs. It has allowed me to develop collaborations with EGID specialists and expand my network of mentors.”

How do you feel the patient community benefits from the CEGIR training program?

“The patient community will benefit from having more physicians who are trained in diagnosing and managing EGIDs. For instance, I have developed an EGID clinic in Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital (Nashville) which quickly is becoming recognized as a regional transfer center for EGID patients in the area. The patient community will benefit from wide-array of research being conducted by the trainees.”