Miami-based Gastro Health has named Maria Abreu, MD, its senior vice president of inflammatory bowel disease clinical care and innovation. The national digestive and liver health medical group announced the appointment Oct. 9.
Dr. Abreu will start seeing patients in Miami in January 2027. In the new role, she will work to advance IBD care regionally and nationally, lead clinical research and help with physician recruitment.
She will also help build Gastro Health’s planned GI fellowship program with Florida International University’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine in Miami.
Dr. Abreu comes to Gastro Health from Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she was executive director of the F. Widjaja IBD Institute. Before that, she directed the Crohn’s & Colitis Center at the University of Miami School of Medicine for more than a decade.
She recently served as president of the American Gastroenterological Association and is a former chair of the International Organization for the Study of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. She won the 2019 Sherman Prize for IBD research and treatment. The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation will give her its 2027 Women of Distinction in Medicine award.
Gene Hernandez, MD, chief medical officer of Gastro Health, said it is a privilege to welcome Dr. Abreu. He added that her leadership and her clinical and scientific expertise will be valuable to the organization.
Dr. Abreu said she is excited to practice in South Florida, which has long been her home.
The hire brings one of the country’s most prominent IBD specialists back to Miami, where Gastro Health has its support center.
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