Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition
We are responsible for collaborating with other health care providers and parents in the diagnosis and treatment of gastrointestinal, liver, pancreatic, and nutritional disorders.
Among the common disorders we treat are chronic abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation, and vomiting. Most children will occasionally experience one or more of these symptoms during their childhood years. 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. It is these children who often need the pediatric gastroenterologist's expertise to pinpoint the problem and determine the most effective therapy.
We have broad experience with complex, less common disorders including:
- Inflammatory bowel disease
- Gastrointestinal bleeding
- Acute and chronic liver disease including hepatitis, and disorders requiring liver transplantation
- Acute and chronic pancreatitis
- Biliary tract disease
- Short-bowel syndrome secondary to necrotizing enterocolitis or congenital malformations
- Complex nutritional problems requiring total parenteral nutrition and specialized tube feedings
- Helicobacter pylori infection causing gastritis and duodenal ulcer
- Inborn errors of metabolism that affect the liver and other parts of the gastrointestinal tract
- Celiac disease and other forms of chronic diarrhea and malabsorbtion
Our mission is to act as a repository of information and clinical experience for those children and families afflicted with diseases that the pediatric practitioner rarely sees or may not have the means to treat. We are eager to see a patient to provide a second or third opinion, with the hope that our knowledge and the resources of Duke Children's can be mobilized to solve these difficult problems. Having established close cooperation with other divisions within Duke Children's, we can organize comprehensive evaluations for those patients who require the expertise of several specialists.
Areas of particular clinical interest and expertise within our team include Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, short-bowel syndrome, chronic liver disease, liver transplantation, infection with Helicobacter pylori, and inborn errors of metabolism that affect the liver.
To increase our knowledge, we are connected to a worldwide electronic bulletin board for pediatric gastroenterology. This bulletin board provides instantaneous consultation with up to 300 professional members and enables us to enlist the help of other experts.
Our Team
Our team Duke Children's consists of a diverse group of dedicated health-care professionals including:
- Three board-certified pediatric gastroenterologists
- One pediatric nurse practitioner
- Three registered nurse clinicians
- A registered pediatric dietician
- A laboratory research coordinator
- Two administrative assistants
- Three pediatric endoscopy suite nurses
A state-of-the-art pediatric gastrointestinal endoscopy suite is available at Duke for all gastrointestinal procedures performed on pediatric patients.
Our dedicated pediatric dietitian and other nutritional experts work closely with the Divisions of Hematology and Oncology, Bone Marrow Transplantation, Endocrinology, Nephrology, Infectuous Diseases, and Genetics. This close collaboration is designed to ensure that patients receive the best in nutritional care during their fight against severe chronic diseases through a variety of techniques including:
- Oral nutritional supplementation
- Nasogastric or nasojejunal tube feeding
- Endoscopically placed gastrostomy or gastrojejunostomy tubes
- Intravenous nutrition through a central venous catheter
We work closely with many home health care companies to allow the chronically ill child in need of special nutritional support to return to the home enviroment as soon as it is possible and medically safe.
Together with the Division of Pediatric Surgery, we consult and manage children with severe gastroesophageal reflux; infants with congenital malformations of the gastrointestinal tract; infants with intestinal, hepatic, and abdominal tumors; and infants and children with obstructions of the bile ducts and pancreatic ducts. We have also recently helped establish a pediatric liver transplantation program that complements Duke's established and highly successful liver transplant program for adult patients.
Treatments
We offer a comprehensive consultative, diagnostic and therapeutic program. We provide easy out-patient access for patients in the Eastern North Carolina region with offices located at Duke Children's Clinic or one of our four outreach clinics.
We perform the following diagnostic and therapeutic procedures:
- All carbohydrate breath test, including lactose breath test
- Anal and esophageal manometry
- Chronic total parenteral nutrition
- Colonoscopy, flexible sigmoidoscopy and small bowel enteroscopy with biopsies
- Dilatation of esophageal, and colonic strictures
- Endoscopic electrocautery, heat ablation and laser therapy of bleeding lesions in the stomach, duodenum, and colon
- Endoscopic polypectomy
- Esophageal variceal sclerotherapy and variceal banding
- Foreign body recovery from the esophagus and stomach
- Gastrojejunostomy tube placements
- Pancreatic stimulation test
- Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy
- Percutaneous liver biopsy
- Prolonged intraesophageal pH monitoring
- Small bowel biopsy with measurement of intestinal enzymes
- Specialized nasogastric and gastrostomy tube feedings
- Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy with biopsies
- Video capsule endoscopy
- Wireless capsule esophageal pH monitoring
Physicians
| Name | Areas of Special Interest |
|---|---|
| Tom K. Lin, MD | General pediatric gastroenterology, biliary diseases/disorders, inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) |
| Martin H. Ulshen, MD | Pediatric intestinal and hepatic diseases, abdominal pain, gastroesophageal reflux, inflammatory bowel disease, chronic constipation, nutritional disorders |
Clinic Hours and Location
2301 Erwin Road
Durham, NC 27710
Tel: 919-668-4000
3480 Wake Forest Road, Suite 310
Raleigh, NC 27609
Tel: 919-862-5750
Appointments and Contact Information
Calls from our patients will be returned within 24 hours by the nurse or physician involved in the patients care.
For immediate access to a Duke faculty physician within the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition, please call 919-668-4000.
We have office hours five days a week and can schedule most patients promptly. We guarantee immediate access to a Duke pediatric gastroenterologist, hepatologist, and nutritionist for patients considered emergencies by their primary care physicians.
To be more accessible to our North Carolina patients, we operate the following satellite office:
- Raleigh: Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition Clinic at the Duke Children's Consultative Services of Raleigh; 919-855-0306.
