Adriana Lazarescu

Area of Study / Keywords

medical education esophageal motility GI motility

About

Dr. Adriana Lazarescu is a gastroenterologist and professor in the Division of Gastroenterology at the University of Alberta.  After receiving her medical degree from the University of Toronto, she completed residencies in Internal Medicine at the University of Western Ontario and Gastroenterology at Queen's University.  Dr. Lazarescu received the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology(CAG)/Novartis Resident Research Training Award in 2007 and went on to pursue a CIHR-funded clinical research fellowship in Esophageal Motility at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium.

Clinical Interests

Dr. Lazarescu is an attending staff gastroenterologist at the University of Alberta Hospital.  She is the founder of the Achalasia Clinic which provides subspecialized and innovative care for patients with achalasia.  She is the director of the GI Motility Lab, one of the largest and busiest in Canada, which serves patients from throughout western Canada and the Northwest Territories.  She is the GI lead for the Adult Spina Bifida Clinic.

Dr. Lazarescu is part of the multidisciplinary Adult Spina Bifida Clinic and frequently collaborates with the Lung Transplant Group, Cystic Fibrosis Clinic, Severe Asthma Clinic, and the Neuromuscular Disorders Clinic.

Research

Dr. Lazarescu has been a member of various national and international clinical practice guidelines committees, including the Chicago Classification version 4.0 for esophageal motility disorders, CAG irritable bowel syndrome CPG, CAG dysphagia diagnosis CPG, IWGCO definition, classification and management of refractory gastroesophageal reflux disease consensus, and the high resolution manometry in foregut surgery international initiative.

Teaching

Dr. Lazarescu has been extensively involved in both undergraduate and postgraduate medical education.  She was the MED556 Medicine Subspecialties Selectives clerkship director for 11 years and initiated an innovative narrative reflection project to introduce the CanMEDS framework at the undergraduate medical level.  Dr. Lazarescu was director of the Adult Gastroenterology residency training program at the University of Alberta.  She is the founder and director of the Neurogastroenterology and Motility fellowship program.  Dr. Lazarescu is co-founder and co-director of the Canadian GI Fellows Motility Course.  She is also a member of the Royal College Adult Gastroenterology exam board.

Dr. Lazarescu was invited to be part of the joint task force of the American Neurogastroenterology and Motility Society (ANMS) and the European Society for Neurogastroenterology and Motility (ESNM) which formulated a 3-tiered structured competency-based training curriculum for both adult and pediatric GI motility. Dr. Lazarescu has created 2 GI motility podcasts, one in English (GI 101 with Dr. Dan Sadowski) and one in French (Gastro 101 with Dr. Alicia Demers-Leblanc).  

Dr. Lazarescu has been honoured with multiple awards for her contributions to medical education.  She was named both Teacher of the Year and Endoscopy Teacher of the Year by the GI residents at the University of Alberta.  She received the Canadian Association for Medical Education (CAME) Certificate of Merit Award, the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology (CAG) Education Excellence Award and the Alberta Society of Gastroenterology (ASG) Distinguished Educator Award.

Gyawali C.P., Zerbib F., Bhatia S., Cisternas D., Coss-Adame E., Lazarescu A., Pohl D., Yadlapati R., Penagini R., Pandolfino J.

NEUROGASTROENTEROLOGY AND MOTILITY. 2021 July; 33 (8):193-212 10.1111/nmo.14134