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Dr. Brennan Spiegel is assistant 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 VA/UCLA divisions of digestive diseases, co-director of the health outcomes core for the NIH-sponsored center for neurovisceral sciences and women's health, and a member of the CURE digestive diseases research center. He is currently an HSR&D career development awardee through the VA.  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 the UCLA/VA program, and completed advanced studies in health services research at the UCLA School of Public Health.

Dr. Spiegel's research interests have focused on acid-peptic disorders, chronic liver disease, gastrointestinal hemorrhage, and functional bowel disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and dyspepsia. His current primary research is to define 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. Dr. Spiegel is particularly interested in the role of the physician-patient relationship in IBS, and has recently conducted a randomized control study comparing a "model physician-patient relationship" versus usual care in the management of 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, multivariable regression analysis, survival analysis, expert panel research, and use of clinical informatics to support decision making.  He is a peer-reviewer for numerous medical journals.