Division Overview

Thank you for visiting the Pediatric Surgical webpage. The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City has the oldest Department of Pediatrics in the United States. There is a rich tradition here of offering surgical care for children. We benefit from coordinated care with outstanding specialists including pediatricians, pediatric gastroenterologists, pediatric oncologists, pediatric anesthesiologists, radiologists, intensivists, pathologists and many others.

With the great advances in technology, many problems can be recognized in a fetus which previously were unknown until the parents and doctors were surprised in the delivery room. If a problem is found in the fetus, the parents receive attention from our team including the obstetrical specialist and neonatologists (pediatricians who are experts in caring for newborn patients with complex problems).

Now, when a baby is born with an obstruction of the bowels, a cyst on the ovary, an abnormal lung, a hole in the abdominal wall or many other problems, we can coordinate our care and prepare the family well before delivery.

Our team strives to be as friendly to families as we possibly can. We appreciate the great stress that parents experience when a child faces a surgical operation. With our Nurse Practitioner the physicians on the service work with child life specialists and others to make smaller, common operations and the big frightening ones as comfortable for the child and the family as possible. Our surgical patients include those not yet born (with problems detected in the womb by maternal ultrasound), newborns, children and adolescents.

We also have the most experience on the Eastern section of this country in the operative management of pediatric inflammatory bowel disease. Children with ulcerative colitis today can be cured of their disease and usually spared a life long stoma. This means they will evacuate in the normal way and not require a bag on the skin. This requires complex surgical care and should be undertaken by a team with experience in these problems. Our Nurse Practitioner, Nan Lim-Sulit organizes a network of families whose children have been through this experience. This group supports our patients and their families.

Common problems with which we have large experience, include such conditions as hernias, hydroceles, undescended testes, pyloric stenosis and appendicitis. Children usually do extremely well with these types of problems. Our goal is to offer the most up-to-date care in the most sensitive way possible. Children 2 years old or older receive pre-operative orientation designed to limit their fears. A parent usually joins the child when anesthesia is started. This system is designed to reduce the fright for the child.

When children are hospitalized we work with our child life team to distract and comfort them before and after operations.