Gastroenterology and Nutrition

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Nurse practitioner Kathy Reid, gastroenterologist Rabin Persad and psychiatrist Heidi Wilkes work together to address medical, psychiatric and mental health symptoms of patients at the Stollery Children's Hospital pediatric abdominal pain clinic. Click on the photo to learn more. 

The Department of Pediatrics' Gastroenterology and Nutrition division, located at the Stollery Children's Hospital, evaluates and manages infants, children and adolescents with diseases involving the gastrointestinal tract, the pancreas and the liver. These include conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease, short bowel syndrome, celiac disease, eosinophilic esophagitis and functional gastrointestinal disorders, as well as chronic and acute liver disease such as biliary atresia and liver failure.

The Stollery Children's Hospital is home to Western Canada's only pediatric liver and multi-visceral transplant programs, and performs an average of twelve pediatric liver transplants each year and one small bowel/multi-visceral transplant every one to two years.


Northern Alberta Pediatric Home Nutrition Support Program

At the Stollery Children's Hospital we also provide strong medical support and leadership to the Northern Alberta Pediatric Home Nutrition Support Program. This program manages over 300 children and adolescents who are not able to feed by mouth and require some form of tube-feeding. We, together with Pediatric Home Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN), are partnered with the Western Canada Children's Intestinal Rehabilitation Program, where clinical and research expertise is shared to improve the health outcome of children with intestinal failure, such as those with short bowel syndrome.


Services

We offer a complete range of gastrointestinal procedural services, including diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopy, ileocolonoscopy, percutaneous endoscopic insertion of gastrostomy tubes, video capsule endoscopy, 24-hr pH-probe and impedance. We also have access to gastrointestinal motility services, endoscopic ultrasound, endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography and double balloon enteroscopy via our Adult Gastroenterology Division.


Support

In addition to the support we receive from the Home Nutrition Program and Home TPN Program, our program is also assisted by a dedicated inpatient pediatric gastroenterology nurse practitioner, three outpatient clinic nurses, two liver and small bowel transplant nurses, three dieticians and a social worker.


Education

Our Pediatric Gastrointestinal Training Program is recognized and accredited by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. Here we provide over two years of strong clinical and procedural training with the option of doing a third year in research or hepatology and transplant fellowship.

Gastroenterology and Nutrition Residency Program


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Clinics

Northern Alberta Pediatric Home Nutrition Support Program
EPIC Pediatric IBD Clinic


Division members 


Contact the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology

Email: pgastro@ualberta.ca
Phone: 780-248-5420