Our Services

The team in the pediatric gastroenterology, nutrition & hepatology program at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida, provides care for infants, children and adolescents with a wide range of chronic and acute disorders of the gastrointestinal tract.

Our team of highly trained and board-certified physicians is dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of both common and complex gastrointestinal, liver and nutritional disorders. We provide comprehensive evaluation, diagnostic procedures and therapy services for our patients, serving families in the greater Tampa Bay area, throughout central Florida and beyond.

Our experts are experienced in diagnosing children with both common and complex gastrointestinal disorders. This is essential especially in evaluating children experiencing symptoms such as abdominal pain, poor weight gain, vomiting, diarrhea and constipation. Most children occasionally experience one or more of these symptoms.

Some children, however, develop recurrent symptoms, which interrupt their normal life, inhibit their development, disrupt their school performance and affect their emotional well-being and self-esteem. Our expertise in diagnosing these conditions helps our patients to receive the care that best meets their individual needs.

Conditions We Treat

The gastroenterologists provide care and services for general clinical pediatric gastroenterology and a broad range of specialty areas, including:

• Abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation and vomiting (acute and chronic)

• Acute and chronic pancreatitis

• Celiac disease

• Crohn's disease

• Encopresis

• Eosinophilic esophagitis

• Esophageal varices

• Failure to thrive, and feeding and swallowing disorders

• Fatty liver

• Gallbladder disease

• Gastroesophageal reflux and other problems of the esophagus

• Gastrointestinal bleeding

• Helicobacter pylori

• Inflammatory bowel disease

• Irritable bowel syndrome

• Lactose intolerance

• Liver disease

• Milk protein allergy (common in infants)

• Motility disorders (abnormal intestinal contractions)

• Nutritional problems

• Polyps

• Poor weight gain

• Short bowel syndrome/intestinal failure

• Swallowed foreign bodies

• Ulcerative colitis

Services and Procedures We Provide

• Colonoscopy, flexible sigmoidoscopy and small bowel enteroscopy with biopsies

• Dilation of esophageal and colonic strictures

• Endoscopic electrocautry, heat ablation and laser therapy of bleeding lesions in the stomach, duodenum and colon

• Endoscopic polypectomy

• Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopanecraticography (ERCP)

• Esophageal variceal sclerotherapy and variceal banding

• Foreign body recovery from the esophagus and stomach

• Gastojejunostomy tube placements

• Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG)

• Percutaneous liver biopsy

• Prolonged intraesophageal pH monitoring

• Small bowel biopsy with measurement of intestinal enzymes

• Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy with biopsies

• Video capsule endoscopy