According to estimates by the American Cancer Society (ACS), about 106,590 Americans will be diagnosed with colon cancer this year. An additional 46,220 will receive a diagnosis of rectal cancer.
These overall rates are dropping about 1 percent each year, thanks to more people getting screened, but one data point is particularly alarming: Colorectal cancer rates among people younger than 55 have actually been increasing 1 to 2 percent each year since the mid-1990s.
That alarming number is part of the reason FHN has reorganized and strengthened our Gastrointestinal (GI) team. When you make an appointment for a digestive concern or to schedule a screening, you’ll talk to an Advanced Practice Provider (APP) – a nurse practitioner or physician assistant with experience in caring for their patients’ whole health.
Advanced Practice Professionals’ additional training and certifications mean they can prescribe medications, diagnose and treat illnesses, and order advanced testing when it’s necessary. They take the time to examine and evaluate each patient and, when necessary, work with FHN’s new GI specialists to create a care plan.
When patients’ care plans require advanced testing or procedures, your APP “hands off” their care to the physicians, much like your primary care provider would “hand off” your care to the FHN Hospitalist team if you required hospitalization.
Drs. John Losurdo, MD and Jack Leya, MD perform endoscopies and other in-hospital testing procedures, as well as any invasive procedures our patients may need, then hand off again back to the office GI team.
This close collaboration between patients, providers, and specialists keeps you at the center of the picture, and is the standard of care accepted across the nation. Our patients benefit from the personalized care in the office and our experienced physicians.
Both of our GI specialists have many years of experience and have completed gastroenterology fellowships, have published studies and teach future physicians at prestigious universities.
Jack Leya, MD earned his undergraduate and medical degrees at Jagiellonian University College of Medicine in Krakow, Poland. He served his internship and an internal medicine residency at Hines VA Hospital, Loyola University Medical Center in Hines, Ill., where he also completed a gastroenterology fellowship.
In addition to his gastroenterology practice, he serves as a professor of medicine at Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine in Maywood, Ill. He is a member of the American Gastroenterology Association, the Chicago Society of Gastroenterology, and the American Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy.
John Losurdo, MD earned his medical degree from UHS/The Chicago Medical School in Chicago, and served an internal medicine residency and gastroenterology fellowship at Loyola University Medical Center in Hines, Ill.
He serves as the chief of the Gastroenterology and Hepatology division at Hines VA Hospital, Loyola University Medical Center in Hines. He is a Diplomate of the American College of Gastroenterology and of the American Board of Internal Medicine, and a member of the American Gastroenterological Association and the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy.