New Pediatric Procedure Suite
A
brand-new $1.8 million,
3,900-square-foot procedure
suite opened at McLane
Children’s Hospital Scott & White in
April for interventional diagnostic
tests and some treatment solutions
for gastroenterology and pulmonaryrelated conditions. “The procedure
suite is three rooms of amazing, state-ofthe-art technology, staffed by pediatric
experts who are board-certified in
pulmonology, gastroenterology, and
anesthesiology, and by highly trained
pediatric nurses,” says its medical
director, Ashis V. Barad, MD, a
pediatric gastroenterologist and assistant
professor of pediatrics at the Texas
A&M Health Science Center College
of Medicine.
“What’s really great for children is that when they
wake up, there’s no nausea and no stomachaches.
They can go back to school and resume normal
activities the next day.”
—Ashis V. Barad, MD
This significant new service at
McLane Children’s will help thousands
of children, especially those who suffer,
like adults, from lung diseases such
as pneumonia and asthma. It also
helps children with gastrointestinal
conditions, such as inflammatory
bowel disease including Crohn’s disease
(which affects one in 10,000 kids) and
colitis polyps, ulcers, acid reflux, and
celiac disease. It can also help the 30
percent of children who complain of
abdominal pain. Pediatric patients
with congenital conditions, such as
malformed intestines that result in short
gut syndrome, will benefit from the
procedure suite as well. The suite has
endoscopy capabilities, which means
that patients can quickly and painlessly
undergo minimally invasive diagnostic
tests, such as colonoscopies, and capsule
endoscopies to assess stomach bleeding.
It’s all housed in a digital computerized
environment to help clinicians assess
and treat young patients, who often
experience very painful symptoms
and need sophisticated tests for an
accurate diagnosis.
The procedure suite currently
is equipped with scopes, or probes,
for minimally invasive procedures.
Additional equipment (see sidebar) will
be needed to fully realize the suite’s
capabilities and expand its services to
areas such as pediatric dentistry, podiatry,
Dr. Ashis V. Barad shows patient Gloria Wetherbee and her mother, Vicki, how an
endoscope camera works in the new procedure suite at McLane Children’s.
sw.org | Summer 12 The Catalyst
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