Hi.  My name is Steven Yang.  I’m a physician over at Phoebe Gastroenterology.  I’m a board certified gastroenterologist.  I moved down here from New York about a year ago.  In New York I used to be in academics training other physicians become gastroenterologists.  So I was doing that for about five years.  And, you know, it was a difficult choice moving down to Georgia from New York City but I’m happy with that decision.  For those who are not sure what a gastroenterologist does, essentially we take care of the GI track essentially from the mouth all the way down to the anus and everything that falls in between, in addition to the pancreas and the liver.

So for those who are wondering, you know, should I go see a gastroenterologist.  Well, sometimes if you have abdominal upset, if you have abdominal pain, you’re having problems with your bowel movements, you’re having diarrhea, constipation, sometimes you’ll be bleeding, so you’ll be bleeding rectally or vomiting up blood.  Those are the type of scenarios where you definitely want to see a gastroenterologist and also people who have family histories of colon cancer or, let’s say, stomach cancer or any other types of cancer within the GI track, you’ll probably want to see a gastroenterologist.

People with liver abnormalities, those are also folks that should see a gastroenterologist.  And the majority of the gastroenterologists are also hepatologists, meaning we study and intensively investigate and work on the liver, so that’s our specialty.  In order to become a gastroenterologist, not only are you a regular internal medicine physician but you also do three years of extra training after you’ve finished your residency in primarily doing what we do.  And for myself, I like to say that I was in academics and I used to be taking part in educating and training other physicians to do what I do right now.  

Right now if you see a pin on my lapel here, that is for screening colonoscopy and colon cancer awareness.  And the reason why we do that is because it’s the third leading cause of death in the US.  There are about 100,000 new cases that are being diagnosed with colon cancer.  There are another close to 45-50,000 colorectal cancer, so a little lower down in the colon or in the rectal area.  And among those patients or other patients who unfortunately have colon cancer, 50,000 people actually die every year.  So it is the third leading cause of cancer death in the US, so we really, really need to be aware of it.  

We need to stress that everybody needs to be screened, and the guidelines in the US is for patients over the age of 50 to have at least a screening colonoscopy.  And for those people who have family history, they may need to be screened even earlier.  Now for African-Americans and Hispanics, we tend to start screening them a little bit sooner than 50 so we usually go at 45 years old.  So those are the key things that need to be stressed.  And unfortunately, among all the people that need to have a colonoscopy, only half, 50 percent, are actually getting it.  

So we really, really need to stress that because we save lives.  If we see lesions or polyps or these growths in the colon, if we catch them early enough we can remove it relatively simply.  Patients come in for an occasional 30-minute procedure a majority of the time and, you know, they’re sedated so they’re going to be very comfortable.  They’re not going to know exactly what happened because the medicines that we give them causes amnesia, you know, they kind of forget what just happened to them.  So for a 30-minute procedure, maybe taking about two hours of your time throughout your busy day, it can save your life.

For those who need our services, we’re here to serve you.  Please call us or contact us.  You can go through the Phoebe website which is phoebeputney.com, or you can call us at the office which is 229-312-0698 and we’ll be more than happy to take care of all your needs.