Gastrointestinal & Hepatobiliary Pathology Fellowship

The Department of Pathology offers a one-year fellowship in Gastrointestinal & Hepatobiliary Pathology (Selective Pathology) that is ACGME accredited. The fellowship training primarily focuses on the diagnostic aspects of adult and pediatric gastrointestinal, liver, pancreas and biliary tract disease. The consultation service receives nearly 1500 outside consultations (60-70% medical and neoplastic liver, 30-40% tubular GI and pancreaticobiliary). The fellow also coordinates the consultations for challenging cases from in-house gastrointestinal and hepatobiliary as well as the liver transplant services. UCSF has an active Transplant Program that performs more than 150 liver transplants every year, and a large pediatric/adult IBD program, providing rich diagnostic material in these areas. The fellows participate in multidisciplinary clinical conferences, including liver transplant, hepatology/gastroenterology conferences, pediatric gastroenterology conference, as well as other ad hoc clinical case reviews with the pertinent clinical Hepatobiliary and GI teams. The workflow in GI and Hepatobiliary Pathology service is completely digitized offering a unique experience in digital pathology and offering the choice of digital vs. glass slides review for nearly all the clinical cases.

There are numerous research opportunities and the service extensively uses cutting edge immunohistochemistry, molecular techniques and sequencing assays. The fellows work at Moffitt, Mission Bay and VA Hospitals; elective experience in endoscopy, molecular pathology and other subspecialties of surgical pathology is available.

Additional years of post-doctoral level training may be available for qualified candidates with an interest in basic research in hepatobiliary & gastrointestinal disease. Candidates who are interested in general surgical pathology fellowship, in addition to GI and hepatobiliary pathology subspecialty training, may be offered a two-year combined training experience (see surgical pathology fellowship webpage for details).

UCSF Gastrointestinal & Hepatobiliary Pathology Group

Back row (left to right): Dana Balitzer, Kester Haye, Aras Mattis, Nancy Joseph, Sanjay Kakar, Ryan Gill.

Front row (left to right): Raga Ramachandran, Soo-Jin Cho, Sarah Umetsu, Kwen Wun, Linda Ferrell, Grace Kim.

Faculty Involved with Fellowship

Sanjay Kakar, MD
Grace E. Kim, MD
Ryan M. Gill, MD, PhD
Rageshree Ramachandran, MD, PhD
Sarah E. Umetsu, MD, PhD
Won-Tak Choi, MD, PhD
Nancy M. Joseph, MD, PhD
Kwun Wah Wen, MD, PhD
Dana Balitzer, MD, PhD
Soo-Jin Cho, MD, PhD

Requirements

Two completed years anatomic pathology minimum (3 years preferred), or Board eligibility/certification in AP/CP.
Non-U.S. citizens must possess a Permanent Resident Card or an appropriate educational visa prior to starting a postgraduate medical education program. The Department of Pathology may sponsor J1 visas.
If selected, candidates must obtain an unrestricted medical license or a Postgraduate Training License (PTL) from the Medical Board of California before their start date.

Medical Board of California

Salary

Fellows will be appointed as a PGY-5.

UCSF GME Trainee Financial Resources

Application

Applications for the 2026-2027 academic year are now closed.

Important Dates

Please check back in Spring 2025 for information on how to apply for the 2027-2028 cycle.

The program does not discriminate with regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sex, gender, gender expression, gender identity, gender transition status, pregnancy, physical or mental disability, medical condition (cancer-related or genetic characteristics), genetic information (including family medical history), ancestry, marital status, age, sexual orientation, citizenship, or service in the uniformed services, including protected veterans.

Current & Future Fellows

2024-25
Nazire Albayrak, MD
Xiaoqin (Lucy) Liu, MD, PhD

2025-26
Goknur Akarca, MD
Maryam Kooshesh, MD

Past Fellows

Individual	Fellowship Years	Fellowship Activity	Post Graduate or Current Position
Annoel P. Yabes, MD	2005-2006	HCC Variants	Independent Contractor
Lawrence Walden Browne, MD, PhD	2006-2007	Resident Education; FS diagnosis of fatty change for donors; Interobserver study pre and post training on how to grade fat that showed improvement	Staff Pathologist, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, CA
Hubert H. Fenton, MD	2007-2008	Hemochromatosis and liver transplant risks	Staff Pathologist, Pathology Associates, Greenville, SC
Kimberley Evason, MD, PhD	2008-2009	PFIC2 morphology correlation with genetic and immunohistochemical findings	Staff Pathologist, Department of Pathology, University of Utah/Huntsman Cancer Institute
Maggie M. Lam, MD	2008-2009	HFE mutations in alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency	Staff Pathologist, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center Oakland, California
Rageshree Ramachandran, MD, PhD	2008-2009	Resident education: immunohistochemistry for diagnosis of HCC	Associate Professor in Pathology, University of California San Francisco
Ryan M. Gill, MD, PhD	2009-2010	Centrizonal arterialization in NASH correlates with higher stage fibrosis	Professor and Director of Surgical Pathology, University of California, San Francisco
Aras Mattis, MD, PhD	2009-2010	Vascular liver tumor variants	Assistant Professor in Pathology, University of California, San Francisco
Andrea Pingitore, MD	2009-2010	Recurrent hepatitis C and steatosis in transplant patients; Neonatal, perinatal obstructive live disease	Genomic Health
Amanda Doherty, MD	2010-2011	Resident Education; HIV, solid organ transplant, and recurrent HCV	Staff Pathologist, Kaiser Medical Center, Santa Clara, CA
Gregor Krings, MD, PhD	2010-2011	Immunohistologic distinction between cholangiocarcinoma and benign ductular lesions	Assistant Professor of Pathology, University of California San Francisco
Soo-Jin Cho, MD, PhD	2011-2012	Vascular malformations; FNH-like lesions in the liver	Assistant Professor in Pathology, University of California San Francisco
Daniel Phillips, MD	2011-2012	Immunohistochemical stains in the diagnosis of poorly differentiated HCC	Staff Pathologist, Sierra Pathology Associates, Clovis, CA
Thuy B. Nguyen, MD	2012-2013	Immunohistochemistry of primary liver tumors	Staff Pathologist, Mills Peninsula Health Services, South San Francisco, CA
Samip Patel, MD	2012-2013	Well differentiated hepatocellular tumors and combined HCC/cholangiocarcinoma	Staff Pathologist, Atlanta VA Medical Center, Atlanta, Georgia
Mojgan Hosseini, MD	2013-2014	Segmental cholangiectasia and recurrent pyogenic cholangitis; ductular reaction mimicking cholangiocarcinoma; pediatric cholestatic liver disorders	Assistant Professor in Pathology, University of California San Diego
Menaku Raju, MD	2013-2014	Carcinosarcoma of the esophagus	Staff Pathologist, Kaiser Medical Center, San Jose, CA
Gillian Hale (Genrich), MD	2014-2015	Beta-catenin mutations in hepatocellular adenoma; glutamine synthetase immunohistochemistry in liver tumors	Faculty Pathologist, University of Utah, Salt lake City, UT
Sarah Umestu, MD, PhD	2014-2015	Grading and staging of appendiceal mucinous neoplasms; GNAQ mutations in anastomosing hemangioma	Assistant Professor in Pathology, University of California San Francisco
Carolyn Sangokoya, MD, PhD	2014-2015	Hepatic iron homeostasis; MiR-485-3p and MiR-122 in liver development and disease	Research Fellow in Pathology, University of California San Francisco
Won-Tak Choi, MD PhD	2015-2016	Flow cytometric analysis of dysplasia in Barrett esophagus; Small vs large droplet macrovesicular steatosis in liver transplant biopsies; gastric pyloric gland adenoma	Associate Professor in Pathology, University of California San Francisco
Rocky Adams, MD	2015-2016	Genetics of hepatocellular adenoma	Staff Pathologist, Saint George, UT
Christos Tsokos, MD, PhD	2015-2016	TERT promoter mutations in combined hepatocellular-cholangiocarcinoma	Postdoctoral research fellow, Mass General Hospital, Boston, MA
Zhen Yan, MD	2015-2017	Staging system for fibrolamellar carcinoma; immunohistochemical pitfalls in hepatic angiomyolipoma	Staff Pathologist, Diagnostic Pathology Medical group, Vallejo, CA
Su-Yang Liu, MD, PhD	2016-2017	Tumor deposits in colorectal cancer; whole slide imaging for primary diagnosis of GI biopsies	Postdoctoral research fellow, UCSF
Kwun Wah Wen, MD, PhD	2017-2018	Immature B-cells in adult and pediatric liver biopsies; genomics of appendiceal goblet carcinoid	Assistant Professor in Pathology, University of California San Francisco
Daniel Roberts, MD	2017-2018	Pathologic features predicting recurrence of HCC after transplant	Staff pathologist, Cleveland Clinic, OH
Kester Haye, MD, PhD	2018-2019	Characterization of colonic adenocarcinomas with neuroendocrine features	Faculty, Dept. of Pathology, Univ of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
Dana Balitzer, MD	2018-2019	- Genomic features of cholangiolocellular carcinoma - Novel markers for distinguishing benign vs. malignant biliary proliferations	Staff Pathologist, VA Medical Center, San Francisco, CA
Daffolyn Rachael Fels Elliott, MD, PhD, FRCPC	2019-2020	Parenchymal rejection in allograft livers	Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology The University of Kansas Health System
Christopher Bowman, MD, PhD	2019-2020	Nanostring RNA analysis in subtypes of hepatocellular adenoma	Postdoctoral Research Fellow, UCSF
Hsiang-Chih Liu, MD, PhD	2020-2021	Neuroendocrine markers in colorectal adenocarcinoma	Assistant Professor, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
Nigar Anjuman Khurram, MD	2020-2021	Histological Eosinophilic Gastritis	Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
Ruth Zhang, MD	2021-2022	Aneuploidy in gastric intestinal metapalsia	Fourth Year Pathology Resident, University of California San Francisco
Raymond Yip, MD, MSc	2021-2022	Genomic Profiling of LFABP-Negative Moderately to Poorly Differentiated Hepatocellular Carcinoma	Staff Pathologist, Royal Jubilee Hospital/Victoria General Hospital, Victoria, Canada
Naoki Akanuma, MD, PhD	2022-2023	DNA content abnormality in fundic gland polyps	Third Year Pathology Resident, University of California San Francisco
Alexander Kikuchi, MD	2022-2023	Genomic Analysis in the Categorization of Poorly-Differentiated Primary Liver Carcinomas	Assistant Professor GI/Liver Pathology, University of Utah Health, Huntsman Cancer Institute