The paediatric surgery team in our department is made up of different professionals who tend to any surgical problem which a child may have, from their first few hours of life until their adolescence.
The field of paediatric surgery includes: prenatal diagnosis and consulting, neonatal surgery, general surgery, plastic surgery and urological surgery.
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- Neonatal surgery: This treats congenital malformations such as oesophageal atresia, omphalocele, gastroschisis, thoracic pathology, grave complications in premature babies such as enterocolitis and more common complications such as hernias.
- General surgery: hernias, appendicitis and other abdominal pathologies such as intestinal invagination, poor intestinal rotation, primary peritonitis, etc. It also treats other pathologies which are treatable by paediatric surgery, such as phimosis, cryptorchidy and testicular pathology, lymphoma, thoracic pathologies, skin problems and more.
- Plastic surgery: The areas of interest are facial malformations, especially cleft lip and palate, malformations of the auricles and face and neck tumours in children.
- Urological surgery: Counselling and surgical treatment of genital anomalies and dysfunctions of the bladder, as well as anomalies in the urinary tract, either prenatal or neonatal, and during childhood and adolescence.
- Genital anomalies other than phimosis include buried penis, hypospadias, epispadias, cryptorchidy, varicocele and grave congenital defects such as bladder exstrophy
- Bladder urine dysfunctions such as incontinence for a variety of reasons, neurogenic bladder, either because of congenital defects or post-traumatic, among other causes.
- Anomalies of the urinary tract, such as ectasia and, hydronephrosis, megaureter, double systems, ectopic ureter, vesicoureteral reflux, diverticular disease, ureterocele, posterior urethral valves and other anomalies.
In general, many of the operations are done on an outpatient basis with the goal of ensuring that the child is in hospital only as long as needed and can go through their post-operative recovery at home. These outpatient operations have a previous pre-operative visit to assess the child and perform any pre-operative tests requested by the surgeon prior to the operation.
From the surgical standpoint, the child’s treatment will require an integrated team made up of not only the surgeon but also the anaesthesiologists, paediatricians, nurses and other healthcare staff, as well as the neonatal unit and the neonatal ICU, and, if needed, the intensive care unit of the Quirón Dexeus University Hospital.
The Department of Paediatrics provides care by the Paediatric Surgery team 365 days a year.