Pediatric Surgery

After spending much of his early life in hospitals, Jackson Verner lived out his dream as UCLA Kid Captain, charming everyone along the way.

“My brother’s been through a lot of bad things. He’s had surgery in his nose,” explains 10-year-old McKennan Griffith about her 11-year-old brother, Jack.

There was a time Glen Van Arsdell, MD, director of pediatric cardiac surgery at UCLA Health, wanted to be a fireman or a chicken farmer. Those were unusual choices for a boy who spent his formative years in Thailand with parents who were medical missionaries. His father, [...]

My son Josiah was born with a complex congenital heart defect in 1991. We were told he would have to wait for his surgical repair due to age and the complexity of the repair. Thanks to the wisdom of our local Pediatric Cardiologist in San Bernardino, Dr Sin, he pointed [...]

Rhianna Wilson spent her senior year of high school in and out of four San Diego hospitals, seeking relief for her vision loss, pain and debilitating headaches. At age 18, she was diagnosed with Ehler-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), a rare genetic disorder marked by overly stretchy connective tissue. In [...]

Late 2016 , i began to noticed that chloe’s smile wasnt symmetric with the rest of her facial expressions. I wished that my eyes werent decieving me but as a mom you cant ignore things that you feel in your gut arent right. So as a mom would do I [...]

To minimize missing school days, many kids get their elective surgery done over the summer vacation. But surgery and recovery can also mean missing out on summer fun. Knowing what to expect can help parents and kids plan ahead. Here are tips from two surgeons who perform some [...]

"My dad was a pediatrician, and he was my hero. My very first year as an intern here, he got sick and passed away. After I finished my training, I went back to Peru, where my parents are from, and talked to one of the doctors in the hospital there," [...]

I was one of the first 30 patients to have received a liver transplant performed at UCLA by Dr. Busuttil. Now him and his liver transplant team has performed well over 6,000 transplants since 1984.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued a new warning about the use of anesthesia and sedation drugs in young children and pregnant women. If you’re planning to schedule surgery or another procedure that requires sedation, [...]