Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition

Innovative treatments

The Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at Boston Children's Hospital is one of the first pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition programs in the country.

Our founder, Harry Shwachman, was an early pioneer in the field of pediatric gastroenterology and made many contributions to the understanding of cystic fibrosis, celiac disease and a number of other disorders. He was the first to describe Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome, a disease affecting the pancreas and bone marrow. The most prestigious award given by the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition was named in his honor and our faculty includes three winners of this award for lifetime achievement in pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition: Richard Grand, M.D., W. Allan Walker, M.D. and John Watkins, M.D.

We are one of the first programs in the nation to recognize that maintaining the highest level of care requires encouraging physicians to develop special expertise in the treatment of specific disease and we have established subspecialty programs in critical areas:

• Celiac Disease
• Center for Childhood Liver Disease
• Inflammatory Bowel Disease
• Motility
• The Clinical Nutrition Programs
• The Growth and Nutrition Program
• Therapeutic Endoscopy

In addition, we have created unique multidisciplinary programs to aid children with gastrointestinal problems requiring the expertise of physicians in other specialties:

• CUB (Center for Continence of Urine and Bowel) Program
• CADD (Center for Aerodigestive Disease) Program
• Center for Advanced Intestinal Rehabiliation (CAIR)
• Multivisceral Transplantation Program

We offer the full range of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures and we are one of the only pediatric programs in the country to offer endoscopic ultrasound and capsule endoscopy.