Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Clinical Care

Faculty physicians in the Department of Medicine’s Division of Gastroenterology inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) team at IU School of Medicine provide cutting-edge care to over 3,000 patients, from 20 different states, with IBD and other gastrointestinal illnesses. This is the only group in Indiana with dedicated expertise in inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis) and celiac disease. In 1995, Dr. Debra Helper joined IU Gastro as faculty and established an IBD Center providing state-of-the-art patient care and training in IBD to fellows, residents and medical students. Under an IBD training grant, she mentored GI fellows in the advanced evaluation and treatment of IBD. Dr. Helper was lead site investigator on numerous therapeutic trials for IBD and a small bowel capsule study. An early adaptor of double balloon endoscopy, she helped advance use of the technique at IU. She served as inaugural Medical Director of the Glen Lehman and Douglas Rex endoscopy suites until her retirement in 2015 when she moved west to spend more time with her family. She retired as Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine, Emeritus. She left a great legacy: Three of her mentees (Drs. Fischer, Sagi and Bohm) are current IU Gastro faculty physicians dedicated to IBD care and a scholarship established in her name provides tuition funds to an underprivileged medical student every year.

The fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) program has performed more than 875 FMTs since 2012, and is home to the development of a groundbreaking protocol to treat patients with severe and fulminant Clostridium difficile infections (CDI) that has been adopted by many treatment centers.

Our highly skilled care team performs over 25,000 procedures per year including colonoscopy, fecal microbiota transplant, upper GI endoscopy, small bowel endoscopy, double balloon endoscopy, ileoscopy, sigmoidoscopy, video capsule endoscopy, and pouchoscopy. The faculty physicians are pioneers in the field and have developed many of the techniques utilized for these procedures.

Gastroenterology and Hepatology faculty physicians are the exclusive GI and Hepatology care providers at IU Health University Hospital, Eskenazi Health and the Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center in Indianapolis. The division also has ambulatory and procedural practices at Spring Mill, IU Health North hospital.

The IBD faculty physicians have a robust outreach clinical program where faculty clinicians have established practices in the towns surrounding Indianapolis. Outreach programs are active in Batesville and Lebanon.