Dr. Spiegel is Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Digestive Diseases, UCLA School of Medicine, and in the Division of Gastroenterology, VA Greater Los Angeles Health Care System. Dr. Spiegel is the Section Chief for Outcomes Research at the UCLA Divisions of Digestive Diseases, Co-Director of the Health Outcomes Core for the NIH-sponsored Center for Neurobiology of Stress, and a member of the CURE Digestive Diseases Research Center. He is the Program Director for the UCLA Fellowship Program in Digestive Diseases. Dr. Spiegel attended Tufts University where he majored in Philosophy and Community Health, and received his M.D. with Alpha Omega Alpha honors from New York Medical College. He received training in internal medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, completed a fellowship in Gastroenterology at UCLA, and completed advanced studies in Health Services Research at the UCLA School of Public Health, where he received a Master’s Degree in Health Services. He received a 5-year Research Career Development Award through the Veteran Administration during which time he was trained in health services methodology.
Dr. Spiegel's research interests have focused on functional gastrointestinal disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and dyspepsia, acid-peptic disorders, chronic liver disease, gastrointestinal hemorrhage, and colon cancer screening. His research interests include defining strategies to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of care for patients with IBS and dyspepsia. Toward that end, he has studied the cost-effectiveness of various tests in IBS including the role of colonoscopy and testing for celiac sprue. In addition, he is focused on endpoint assessments, and is the co-chair of the Rome Foundation Outcomes and Endpoints Committee to define the psychometric properties of common endpoints in IBS.
Dr. Spiegel’s publications are focused in the fields of digestive diseases health economics and health related quality of life. He has published cost-effectiveness analyses on topics including the use of cox-2 inhibitors in chronic arthritis, the use of proton pump inhibitors in dyspepsia, the appropriate use of upper endoscopy in gastrointestinal hemorrhage, and the use of antiviral therapies in chronic viral hepatitis. In addition, Dr. Spiegel has performed research across a range of other health services methodologies, including health related quality of life measurement, survey design and administration, systematic review and meta-analysis, expert panel research, development of quality indicators, cost-effectiveness analysis, and use of clinical informatics to support decision making. He is a peer-reviewer for numerous medical journals, and is on the editorial boards for the Alimentary Pharmacoloy and Therapeutics and Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. He is currently an Associate Editor of the American Journal of Gastroenterology. He receives active funding from the NIH, VA, and industry sources.
