The Department of Paediatric Surgery is responsible for paediatric surgery with diagnostic evaluation, care and treatment as well as check up of children with congenital abnormalities, acquired diseases and injuries in the oesophagus, the digestive tract, liver and biliary tract, pancreas, urinary tract and genital organs where surgery is or can be an important factor in treatment. The department is located in two centres with physicians and a secretary in the the Abdominal Centre and nurses in the Juliane Marie Centre.
The department expects to continue developing the laparocscopic, endoscopic, diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, particularly within the expert fields urology and gastrointestinal surgery. In addition, outpatient activities and same-day surgery are expected to increase for small paediatric surgical procedures. Paediatric surgery research activity covers a wide field from disease prevention, screening evaluations to clinical research for experimental surgery. For many years the department’s main area of research has been cryptorchidism.
The department will focus on expanding the outpatient nursing care consultations for children requiring weight check, new dressings, care and treatment with PEG tubes as well as for well-being problems in relation to the child’s basic disease. Better information for parents with chronically ill children with complicated disorders is planned to bedeveloped in the coming years through the establishment of a telephone helpline, new websites and expansion of special nursing care outpatient departments staffed with specially trained urotherapists and ostomy nurses. Furthermore the department wants better transition from child treatment to adult treatment for the chronic paediatric surgery disorders in cooperation with urologists and gastro surgeons for adult patients. In addition, the department’s vision is to make Denmark the only Knowledge and Practice Centre for children with urinary and faecal incontinence within the treatment of children with severe incontinence problems caused by congenital abnormalities in the gastrointestinal and urogenital area. With the department’s paediatric surgeons and specialist nurses in front, this initiative will not only enhance the quality of the care and treatment course for children and their families, but it will also improve cooperation with cross-disciplinary collaboration partners.
Medical experts from Copenhagen University Hospital Rigshospitalet have in collaboration with international colleagues developed European guidelines on how to handle abnormal uterine bleeding during and after menopause aiming inter alia to reduce the number of unnecessary uterine Dilatation and Curettage (D&C) procedures.
One thing is to have state-of-the-art scanners; another thing is to decode the scan images. Rigshospitalet was one of the first hospitals in Europe to acquire an ultra-fast CT scanner. The hospital is now teaching physicians from all over the world to read scans of the heart.
Measurable effects of prioritised and focussed health and safety initiatives only come after implementation; transforming words into action in daily routines. This is what makes a winner and it is on this basis that Rigshospitalet received the European Good Practice Award in April 2013.