Sun, Feb 9, 2025 at 04:09 PM

New GI doctor is welcome addition to the field at Marshall Medical

Marshall Medical Centers welcomed a third gastroenterologist to its physician staff in January. Dr. Chad Sisk, DO, a Fellow of the American College of Gastroenterology (FACG), is seeing patients and performing procedures at Marshall Medical North.

Dr. Sisk joined Medical Specialists of North Alabama where he is a partner with Dr. Winter Wilson and Dr. Benjamin Shepard. His clinic is located on the third floor of the Medical Plaza building next door to Marshall North, in the former office of Dr. Craig Young.

The hospital got a package deal with Dr. Sisk. His wife Allison, a clinical dietitian, also will see patients at Marshall North. The couple is happy to have found a home in North Alabama after the suburban Atlanta area.

“We were looking for a community hospital system focused on the local community,” he said. “Here we found a traditional practice model and a need for a gastroenterologist. Everyone is very genuine here.”

Dr. Sisk was born and raised in Dahlonega in the North Georgia mountains where his extended family still live. His grandfather and father were morticians in his hometown, where his mother worked as a math teacher. She strongly influenced her son on the importance of education and hard work when he watched her return to college with two teenagers at home, completing a master’s degree and a Ph.D., which enabled her to teach at the college level.

Her son knew early on that he wanted a medical career. Dr. Sisk recalls being influenced by a local surgeon who attended church with his family. The surgeon allowed the young teen to follow him, watching him interact with patients and helping them solve issues. The man also was a leader in the church and went on many mission trips. He was a community fixture and left a lasting impression on his young friend.

“I wanted to follow in those footsteps,” Dr. Sisk remembered. “He was a great man and physician. At a young age I realized that was what I wanted to do.”

His medical career started at the age of 15 when he became a volunteer in the local hospital. He was hired as a nurse’s aide then trained as an EMT which was his job while he finished high school and college. Dr. Sisk earned an undergraduate degree at North Georgia College, a military school where he was part of the ROTC program. Medical school was at West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine, which was the same one attended by his now-partner Dr. Wilson.

1. Dr. Sisk joined the Army which enabled him to complete all of his medical training. He studied internal medicine in El Paso, gastroenterology and liver disease in San Antonio. After he completed his residency at William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso and finished a fellowship at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, he began practicing at Fort Benning.

“I enjoyed the Army,” Dr. Sisk said. However, with two young sons at the time and the Persian Gulf conflict brewing along with the risk of deployment, he decided to leave the service after 11 years.

Dr. Sisk was influenced toward a specialty in gastroenterology while studying internal medicine at a military facility. Gastroenterology is the study of the normal function and diseases of the esophagus, stomach, small intestine, colon and rectum, pancreas, gallbladder, bile ducts and liver. The gastroenterologists he worked with allowed him to see patients and learn how to do procedures. Acquiring those skills during early training was beneficial when he began his fellowship having already performed many GI cases. At Marshall, he has set up his practice so that he splits his days between appointments, outpatient procedures and hospital coverage.

“I like the ability to do procedures and see patients in clinic,” he said. “It gives me the opportunity to use both skill sets. I typically do half-day clinic and half-day procedures. I want to do both. I want to be able to talk my patients and make sure that they have a complete understanding of their plan of care moving forward.”

Procedures performed by Dr. Sisk include:

1. Colonoscopies
2. Stricture dilations
3. Polyp resections
4. Endoscopic feeding tubes
5. EGD or upper endoscopies

He also has an interest in and is trained in treating liver disease such as cirrhosis, fatty liver and hepatitis. Dr. Sisk has the ability to handle those cases up to the point where they need to be transferred for further evaluation with a liver transplant team.

The Sisks are settling in to their house in Spring Creek in Guntersville. The couple met in the LaGrange hospital where they were working and will be married two years in March. They are excited about getting to know their new home.

“We love the area and have just started exploring it.”

Allison, originally from Idaho, is very active, often running half marathons. She loves running on the walking trail that winds along Guntersville Lake. The two make a striking couple. Sisk, a 6 feet 8 inches tall former college basketball player, towers over his wife, who sports a very athletic build.

“I like cheeseburgers; she likes grilled salmon,” he says with a laugh.

They’re a diverse couple. He likes watching NASCAR. She took him to a Taylor Swift concert in New Orleans last year.

Allison has a Master’s degree in dietetics from The University of Alabama and has been working as a dietitian for the past seven years. She traces her interest back to anatomy class in high school, which created the stepping stones to the career that she has today. She enjoys her current role working in the hospital setting.

“I like that every day is different,” she says. “You don’t really know what kind of consults you’ll get and what people you are going to see. It absolutely keeps you on your toes.”

Healthy eating is important to her but she is not a fanatic. She categorizes her eating pattern to be the “80/20 rule”. She explains this as “the majority of the time I try to focus on foods that are going to make me feel good and nourish my body. However, I still think it’s important to indulge in sweet treats.”

Allison expects to spend most of her time at Marshall Medical on dietary education, already noticing a demand in the community for diabetes related medical nutrition therapy.

She also has a subspecialty in oncology and worked at the Atlanta location of Cancer Treatment Centers of America.

“It was such a rewarding job,” she said. “It was a truly great experience.”

In addition to treating inpatients at Marshall North, she will also see patients at the Marshall Cancer Care Center. She’s looking forward to sharing dietary guidelines to patients going through treatments.

“Nutrition plays a very important role pre-, during, and post-oncology treatment.”

Dr. Sisk’s two grown sons live in Georgia. The younger one gave him his first grandchild and the older one is expecting a second one to arrive in May.

“Our goal and our desire is to make this home and make it long-term,” he says. “We have been excited by such a welcoming experience so far.”