Department of Internal Medicine - Las Vegas

Message from the Chairman:

I would like to welcome you to the website for the University of Nevada School of Medicine (UNSOM) Department of Internal Medicine, Las Vegas.  Our department has a number of full time and adjunct faculty members dedicated to our missions of service, education, and research. 

Our department is committed to providing quality patient care in the inpatient and outpatient settings.  The majority of inpatient practice occurs together with the residency program at our affiliate hospital University Medical Center.  The faculty ambulatory practice is located at our Patient Care Center.  Our general internists provide primary care and operate a medically supervised weight loss clinic.  The subspecialty faculty practice makes cutting edge care obtainable in the Las Vegas area. Our division of gastroenterology has an Inflammatory Bowel Disease clinic, and performs advanced endoscopic procedures including endoscopic ultrasound.  The neurology division offers expertise in movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, neuromuscular care including the Muscular Dystrophy Association Clinic, treatment of Multiple Sclerosis, and performance of a variety of neurodiagnositic procedures.  The endocrine division has opened a new Diabetes Center to provide state of art care and diabetes education.  We have also started a division of rheumatology whose physicians will be treating patients with lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, gout, and other disorders.

The UNSOM Internal Medicine department is dedicated to education.  We have the largest, post-graduate training program in the state of Nevada with 49 residents.  Our mission is to provide quality training to physicians who will be practicing primary care, subspecialty internal medicine care, or completing a preliminary year prior to joining their specialty program. The residency boasts a 100% board pass rate over the last year and a recent ranking of 94th percentile nationally on the in-training examination.  The curriculum incorporates hands-on training at our state of the art Simulation Center.  We have opened our first fellowship in Oncology in partnership with the Nevada Cancer Institute.  Our residents are successful in matching into competitive fellowship programs.  We train a number of medical students from UNSOM, in both general internal medicine and subspecialty electives.

With the ongoing expansion of our department comes the exciting opportunity to develop new research initiatives.  We are conducting research in the areas of inflammatory bowel disease, movement disorders, neuromuscular diseases, rheumatoid arthritis, and medical education. The federally funded Diabetes Center will be a rich resource for the development of innovative research in Nevada. The residency also contributes to the annual Nevada American College of Physicians Conference. 

Thank you for your interest in our department and I hope you find this site informative.

Sincerely,

John Varras, M.D.

Chairman

Department of Internal Medicine, Las Vegas

2040 W. Charleston Blvd., Ste. 300

Las Vegas, NV 89102

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