Dr. Jan Petrasek is an assistant professor in the Division of Digestive Diseases who practices clinical hepatology and serves as the associate program director of the gastroenterology and hepatology fellowship program.

What is your professional background?

After receiving my M.D. from Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, in 2003, I went through residency and fellowship training in internal medicine, gastroenterology and transplant hepatology at the Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Prague, between 2003 and 2008. From there, I relocated to the United States where I had postdoctoral training in liver immunology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, between 2008 and 2013, and received a Ph.D. in immunology and biochemistry from Charles University in 2010. In 2013, I moved from Massachusetts to Texas for internal medicine residency, gastroenterology fellowship and postdoctoral training in cell biology and biochemistry at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, from 2013-19. I completed my transplant hepatology fellowship there in 2020. The results of my research on the mechanisms of liver disease led to 34 articles in peer-reviewed publications, eight review papers, three book chapters and one multi-centric clinical trial, in addition to numerous conference presentations, including invited presentations, nationally and internationally. For my clinical work, I was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha society. I am an active member of the American Society of Transplantation, the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease and the American Gastroenterology Association, and I serve as an editorial board member for the Hepatology Communications journal.

Tell us about what you do at UMMC.

I joined UMMC in 2021 as a liver transplant specialist and as a gastroenterologist. Recently, I received the honor to serve as the associate program director for the Gastroenterology fellowship.

What advice would you give to someone pursuing medicine today?

Think outside the box, advocate for your patients and your profession and practice self-care.

What do you like most about UMMC?

UMMC offers patient-centered and high-quality health care for patients with a wide variety of conditions, including complex patients with end-stage liver diseases or patients with acute liver failure. The teams of UMMC physicians, nurses and other health professionals care for their patients with the same level of expertise, concern and compassion they would want for their own families. In 2022, the UMMC liver transplant program was listed among the top three in the country. It is a great privilege to work at UMMC!