Helen S. Te, MD, explains her role as well as her department.
HELEN TE: My name is Doctor Helen Te, and I'm a hepatologist here The University of Chicago Medicine. And I'm also the medical director for the adult liver transplant program. As a hepatologist, my practice is focused on liver diseases that ranges widely from the much more simpler case of elevated liver chemistry test to people with chronic hepatitis and those with more serious conditions such as cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. I also take care of patients who are needing liver transplantation, and those who have undergone liver transplant, who pretty much are under my care for the rest of their lives. I am a member of the Center for Liver Diseases, which is a group that is under the bigger umbrella of Digestive of Disease Center. We in the Center for Liver Diseases are mostly people who are really involved in the care for liver patients. So there are physicians, there are mid-level providers such as nurse practitioners, and our nursing staff are all specialized in the care for liver diseases as well. We do clinical care for the most part, but we have also research work that's ongoing at the present time looking at various liver diseases and treatments. And we also reach out into the field of liver transplantation as well, where again we provide both clinical care and do some research activity there. We work closely with other disciplines, which is intrinsic to the management of our patients. So these are the radiology department, with mostly the radiologists who are specialize in cross-sectional imaging, the interventional radiologist. And we work with the hepatobiliary surgeons for patients who require surgery. There's also some patients who need collaborations from oncology, so we also have our oncology colleagues close by as well.
