Start Date / Time
Rajiv Agarwal, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology and Oncology, Department of Medicine, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
He completed his undergraduate studies at Columbia University, and his medical degree from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Duke University Medical Center. He earned his two fellowships in Medical Oncology and in Hospice and Palliative Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He is the first faculty member at Vanderbilt who is a dual-trained and dual-boarded medical oncologist and palliative care specialist.
Dr. Agarwal specializes in treating malignancies of the gastrointestinal tract, with specific interest in colorectal, hepatobiliary, pancreas, and peritoneal disease. He also attends on the inpatient Palliative Care Consultation service. His research interests are to improve quality of life outcomes, illness understanding, decision-making, and communication for patients and families facing cancer. He aims to design supportive oncology interventions and open clinical trials that address cancer-related symptoms and treatment-related toxicity at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center
Dhyanesh Patel, MD, is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, Deparmtne of Medicine, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
He graduated summa cum laude from the University of South Carolina Honors College, and he earned his medical degree from the Medical University of South Carolina with Alpha Omega Alpha. He was awarded the Julius Sagel Excellence in Internal Medicine Award in 2012. He completed hits residency and fellowship at Vanderbilt. During his internal medicine residency, he was awarded the Best Resident Teacher (Hugh Jackson Morgan Teaching Award) in 2014 and subsequently selected as Vanderbilt's chief fellow for his gastroenterology fellowship. He was also awarded the Divya and Anil Patel Gastroenterology Fellowship Award in 2017 and the Richard Schneider Gastroenterology Fellowship Award in 2018. Dr. Patel's clinical focus is on esophageal disorders with research focused on achalasia, esophageal motility disorders, GERD and extra-esophageal reflux. He has been involved in the development of novel diagnostic tools that reduce diagnostic latency and can monitor therapy response in patients with esophageal disorders.
He has over 40 peer reviewed publications and is also the editor for two books (Obesity and Esophageal Disorders, 1st edition, 2022 and Evaluation and Management of Dysphagia: An Evidence Based Approach, 1st edition, 2020). He has been invited to give lectures at multiple national and international venues due to his expertise in esophageal disorders and serves on editorial boards for two of the highest impact journals in his field, Gastroenterology and Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.