Our division provides a full-time consultation service for patients admitted to St. Louis Children’s Hospital. The hospital’s 400 beds include a new state-of-the art 40-bed pediatric intensive care unit, a 12-bed cardiac intensive care unit, a large neonatal intensive care unit (>130 beds), dialysis/pheresis and infusion centers, two cardiac catheterization laboratories, an interventional radiology suite, and an active emergency department (with >50,000 patient visits per year). The division performs over 800 inpatient consultations per year. The hospital has a large oncology service and active transplantation programs in stem cell, heart, heart-lung, lung, kidney and liver; these patients are cared for by our specialized ‘immunocompromised ID’ service.
Patients referred for evaluation or management of a variety of other infectious diseases are seen in our general infectious diseases clinics (see For Parents for times and locations). Arrangements can also be made for urgent outpatient consultations. Conditions treated in general infectious diseases clinics include:
- Bacterial infections involving the bones, joints, lungs, lymph nodes, brain, skin or any other site
- Conditions producing diagnostic dilemmas, such as fever of unknown origin, recurrent infections or rashes of unknown type or origin
- Opportunistic infections in patients who are immunosuppressed due to acquired or congenital immunodeficiency, transplant or other medical condition
- Tick-transmitted and other vector-borne diseases
- Unusual infections such as those caused by fungi, mycobacteria or drug-resistant pathogens
The division provides care for infants and young children with possible or confirmed HIV infection in the Pediatric HIV clinic, Monday afternoons at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Adolescents with HIV infection are seen at The SPOT. These efforts are partially supported by a Ryan White Title IV grant, which funds regional pediatric HIV services. The pediatric HIV clinics see nearly 400 patient visits per year, following over 100 patients with HIV infection and dozens more at any given time who were HIV-exposed at birth.