Fateh Bazerbachi, MD

  • About
    • Specialties: Gastroenterology
    • Board Certified:
      Gastroenterology
      Internal Medicine
    • Gender: Male
    • Languages: Arabic, English, French, Spanish
    Biography

    What I Do
    I completed my internal medicine training at the University of Minnesota, and my general gastroenterology and hepatology fellowship at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Thereafter, I stayed at Mayo for an additional year pursuing additional training in interventional endoscopy procedures.

    Following my training, I was appointed as instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and was part of the interventional endoscopy team at Massachusetts General Hospital from 2019 until 2021. I decided to return to Minnesota given my roots in the state and to help build the interventional endoscopy program at St. Cloud Hospital. I am an Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition.

    As Director of Interventional Endoscopy, I strive to provide excellent and evidence-based medical care and delineate areas of unmet needs and opportunities for discovery.

    My area of interest and work includes clinical outcomes in interventional endoscopy, Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography, Endoscopic Ultrasound, Bariatric endoscopy, and other therapeutic endoscopy techniques. I also have an interest in endoscopic resection of premalignant and early malignant gastrointestinal lesions. I performed the first endoscopic full-thickness resection of a colon cancer site at Massachusetts General Hospital and started this program here at St. Cloud Hospital in 2021. I also started the Endoscopic Submucosal Dissection (ESD) Program at CentraCare in April 2023.

    Why I Love My Work
    My parents and uncles were physicians, and I was able to appreciate the unique opportunity and privilege of working closely with patients and their families. No matter how difficult a diagnosis is, there is always hope, a plan and a way to deal with it. Healing has many facets. Few careers offer this privilege!

    What I enjoy most about my job is the ability to know patients well and work with them and their families to come up with a plan that works best for their situation. Although we study diseases and conditions often presented uniformly in textbooks, no two patients are identical in how an illness affects them.

    I have done my residency, fellowship, and an advanced endoscopy fellowship training in Minnesota. I came to appreciate the quality of life that Minnesota offers. Minnesota is home to towering medical facilities, among which CentraCare is a major institution with excellent resources, incredible infrastructure and outstanding colleagues that allow me to better treat patients and offer them the best diagnostic and therapeutic options.

    Getting to Know Me
    Central Minnesota is a beautiful community with a tradition of solidarity in a state known for its natural beauty and enthralling landscape. I am a big film aficionado. In fact, I was familiar with Glencoe, Minnesota, years before I came here through Louis Malle works, the famous French film director. I am also a big rock, jazz and blues fan!

    Education
    • Medical School
      Damascus University
    • Residency
      University of Minnesota
    • Fellowship
      Gastroenterology, Mayo Clinic Interventional Endoscopy, Mayo Clinic Postdoctoral Research, Toronto General Hospital, University of Toronto
  • Professional Memberships
    • American Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), Quality Assurance in Endoscopy Committee (QAEC)
    • Digestive Disease Week, Moderator and Reviewer
    • American Gastroenterological Association, member
    • American College of Gastroenterology, member

    Publications

    • Frontiers in Medicine, Associate editor for Gastroenterology section
    • VideoGIE, Assistant Editor
    • World Journal of Gastroenterology, editorial board
    • Gastroenterology Report, editorial board
    • Dr. Bazerbachi is a frequently invited reviewer for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, Video Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, Clinical Gastroenterology & Hepatology, American Journal of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, Annals of Hepatology, Digestive Diseases and Science, Pancreatology, and other journals.

    Dr. Bazerbachi has over 150 peer-reviewed publications in premier journals in the field of gastroenterology.