First fellow selected for IU, Kendrick training program at St. Francis

MOORESVILLE, Ind. – Shirley Shih, M.D., has been appointed as the first fellow of the Indiana University School of Medicine Colon and Rectal Residency Program at Kendrick Regional Center for Colon and Rectal Care at St. Francis Hospital-Mooresville.

Shih’s fellowship training – the first program of its kind in Indiana – will begin in July 2009 .

The residency program was established through a partnership between IU, St. Francis and Kendrick Regional Center and marks the first educational joint venture between St. Francis and the medical school, the nation’s second-largest academic medical institution.

The teaching staff comprises surgeons with Kendrick Regional Center and assistant clinical professors with the IU School of Medicine’s Department of Surgery. They are Drs. Olaf Johansen, Fred Lane, R. Barry Melbert, Bridget Sanders and Dipen Maun from Kendrick, and Drs. Bruce Robb and Virgilio George from IU.

Shih received her undergraduate degree at Stanford University and her medical degree from Albany Medical College in Albany, New York. She was trained in general surgery at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C., and is currently a research fellow at Cleveland Clinic Florida.

Upon completing the training, she will be eligible for the qualifying and certifying exams of the American Board of Colon and Rectal Surgery.

More information about the fellowship is available by calling 317-834-9618 or at the Kendrick Regional Center for Colon and Rectal Care Website www.kendrickcenter.com, or the IU School of Medicine site, www.medicine.iu.edu.

In 2007, St. Francis established the Colorectal Cancer Center center of excellence for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of colorectal cancer. It’s one of the largest programs of its kind in Indiana.