Research and Recognition — The Leading Edge of Surgery for Children

Since Lucile Packard Children's Hospital is a major center for research on the diseases and disorders of young people, your child benefits from pediatric general surgery that is up-to-date, leading edge and innovative.

Because of its prominence as a research center, Packard Children's was selected as a pilot center for the development of a national database on surgery on newborns. In addition, Packard Children's is actively pursuing research projects in the following areas:

• Severe or morbid obesity in children

• Dr. Craig Albanese performs minimally invasive surgery

  Minimally invasive procedures using:
  • Laparoscopy - A telescope camera lens is used and large incisions are avoided
  • Thoracoscopy
  • Endoscopy - A small, flexible tube with a light and a camera lens at the end (an endoscope) to examine the inside of part of the digestive tract
  • Image guidance
• Treatment of necrotizing enterocolitis, a severe, sometimes-fatal intestinal infection in newborns
• The causes and treatment of catheter infections
• Biology of stem cells
• Tissue engineering for the replacement of dysfunctional organs and tissues
• Surgery on unborn fetuses in the womb
• Center for Advanced Pediatric Education - Simulation-based training for pediatric and obstetric health care professionals
• Short bowel syndrome
• Surgical robotics and other emerging technologies

Goodman Simulation Center

The Goodman Simulation Center (GSC) will be used to enhance the traditional model of training by providing simulation-based tools and techniques to students, residents and other clinicians and allied health professionals at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital and Stanford Hospital & Clinics. The GSC's goal is to improve patient safety and quality of care by providing the best, most comprehensive learning available. The Center is part of an overall simulation strategy for the two hospitals and the Stanford University School of Medicine and is led by the Center for Immersive and Simulation-based Learning (CISL).
 
The surgical resident curriculum, under the direction of Drs. Thomas Krummel, Ralph Greco, Myriam Curet, Jason Lee and Sanjeev Dutta, has begun to incorporate the use of immersive and simulation-based tools that will be used in the GSC when it opens in late 2006.
 
The GSC will be located on the 3rd floor of Stanford Hospital & Clinics, adjacent to its operating room suites and close to the intensive care units (ICUs).