Each fellowship program in the department has its own unique curriculum, expectations, duration, and even culture, but what they all share is an administrative team ensuring that their program stays accredited and functional and its members on course to meeting their goals. Program Administrator Denise Floerchinger and Associate Program Director Brian Gehlbach, MD, oversee the department’s 17 different fellowships, providing continuity and fostering collaboration across the programs.

Floerchinger and Gehlbach, along with Residency Program Director and Vice Chair for Education Manish Suneja, MD, recently welcomed the 40 new first-year fellows to the department. They also took the opportunity to deliver each fellows’ pager to them.

Gehlbach asked each fellow to introduce themselves to the others, noting that commonalities were always discovered in the exercise. This year proved no different. More than a handful of Cleveland Clinic residency graduates, a couple golfers and pickleball players, lots of parents of young children, and even a couple owners of cockatiels were all revealed.

Suneja, Gehlbach, and Floerchinger then each took the opportunity to impress on the group of F1s a couple important details about expectations applicable to all and unique to UI Health Care. But most importantly, they each established themselves as objective sounding boards outside of their respective programs for concerns or problems they might encounter. Many programs, they emphasized, but one department, committed to each fellow’s education and success.