To improve patient care, the Children’s Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition has added six new faculty members.
When Sandeep Gupta, M.D., arrived at Children’s of Alabama and the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) as chief of the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition in 2023, he immediately recognized the need for expansion. So, not long after his arrival, he embarked on the mission to grow his team. Within the last year-and-a-half, he has welcomed six new faculty, and they’re already making a difference in the way the division serves its patients.
For Gupta, that was the objective—providing better patient care. It’s a large undertaking considering Children’s massive catchment area—the entire state of Alabama along with surrounding states. “Every disease state we have is in the hundreds,” he said. “And the doctors we had in those areas were just one or two.”
Intestinal rehabilitation, or ‘short gut,’ is a good example. It’s a complex issue affecting more than 160 of the team’s patients. But previously, only one doctor was available to serve them. With inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), the team had two doctors for more than 400 patients. The math was similar for patients with liver issues. “There was such a need to bring [new hires] in to just serve what we have,” Gupta said. “We were simply to trying keep our heads above water.”
To address these issues, Gupta began the process of expanding the division in September 2024, making all of the new hires over the course of the next year. In the case of IBD, the expansion was transformative. That group now has two new clinicians, Rahmath Althaf, M.D., and Maggie Vickers, M.D., and a basic scientist, Babajide Ojo, Ph.D. “Now, what we have is basically a team that goes from bench to bedside,” Gupta said. “We are starting studies where we are collecting samples from patients in the clinic, and then [Ojo] is processing these in the lab to do the studies. And with the discoveries he will make, we can then bring the knowledge back to the bedside.”
It’s an “ecosystem” that Gupta believes has not existed in gastroenterology at Children’s. The team has study coordinators and is part of national consortia. “So basically, we are creating a self-dependent and interdependent team of itself that can grow on its own,” he said.
Gupta aspires to create the same setup for intestinal rehabilitation. In the meantime, care is already improving. With Sirine Belaid, M.D., joining the team, the division now has two doctors to treat these patients, allowing them to see inpatients twice each week instead of once. “So now we are able to better serve the people more intentionally, more mindfully,” Gupta said.
Gupta also added liver doctors in David Willcutts, M.D., and Stephanie Saaybi, M.D., who “will helps us grow the liver team further,” he said.
Perhaps the most salient sign of the team’s success so far is this: patients who once had no choice but to go hundreds of miles away for treatment are now able to stay in Alabama for their care. “They are now being sent back to us by the doctors, who are saying, ‘Hey, UAB has a great program—go back there, you don’t need to come see us anymore,’” Gupta said. “So that has been very fulfilling that people are recognizing we are ace-ing our game here.”
With changes of this magnitude, Gupta believes the division can start to move from excellence to eminence, which was another of his goals when he first arrived.
New hires since September 2024
Rahmath Althaf, D.O., an assistant professor, earned her medical degree from the Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine. She completed her residency in general pediatrics at the Medical College of Georgia and her pediatric gastroenterology fellowship at UAB. Her research and clinical interests include IBD and intestinal ultrasound.
Sirine Belaid, M.D., an assistant professor, earned her medical degree from the University of Pittsburgh. She completed her residency in general pediatrics at the University of Iowa Stead Family’s Children’s Hospital and her pediatric gastroenterology fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Babajide Ojo, Ph.D., an assistant professor, earned his doctoral degree in nutritional sciences from Oklahoma State University. He completed his postdoctoral research at Stanford University School of Medicine. He received the NIH MOSAIC K99/R00 award in 2023. His research interests include using patient-derived intestinal organoids and murine models to determine how the environment (dietary components, therapies) shapes epithelial metabolism and differentiation in intestinal health and inflammatory bowel diseases.
Stephanie Saaybi, M.D., an assistant professor, earned her medical degree from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. She completed her residency in general pediatrics at MedStar Georgetown University and her pediatric gastroenterology fellowship at UAB. She completed an additional fellowship in pediatric advanced hepatology and liver transplant at Northwestern University.
Maggie Vickers, M.D., an assistant professor, earned her medical degree from UAB. She completed her residency in general pediatrics and her pediatric gastroenterology fellowship at the Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, St Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Regional One Health. Her clinical interests include general gastroenterology, nutrition and inflammatory bowel disease.
David Willcutts, M.D., an assistant professor, earned his medical degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, where he also completed his residency in pediatrics and his pediatric gastroenterology fellowship. He completed an additional fellowship in pediatric advanced hepatology and liver transplant at the University of Colorado.
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