Barry K. Wershil, MD Division Head, Gastroenterology/ Hepatology/Nutrition

The professionals in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition specialize in evaluating and treating disorders that affect digestion and nutrition in infants and children. These disorders affect many different organs including the gastrointestinal tract (the esophagus, stomach, small intestine and the colon), and the liver, gallbladder, and pancreas. All these organs are involved in absorbing or processing nutrition.

There are thirteen attending physicians in the division and all hold faculty appointments within the Department of Pediatrics at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. The senior faculty members collectively have more than 60 years of experience teaching in this subspecialty. Division Head Barry K. Wershil, MD, has more than 20 years of experience in training Pediatric Gastroenterology fellows. Dr. Peter F. Whitington, Di­rector of the Siragusa Transplantation Center, is a leader in the field of Pediatric Hepatology and Transplant Hepatology and has been training subspecialists for more than 30 years. Dr. Estella M. Alonso, Medical Director of Liver Transplantation, provides more than 15 years of experienced leadership and education in the field of Pediatric Hepatology and Liver Transplantation. The division also has an experienced and dedicated nursing and clinical nutri­tion staff.

The division has approximately 6,000 patient visits in the outpatient setting per year. About two-thirds of those patients are from the Chi­cago/upper Midwest region, while the rest are from a wide geographic area, including many national and international referrals. Pediatricians and Gastroenterologists refer the majority of patients for tertiary services. Some of the more common diagnoses encountered in our general GI clinics are gastroesophageal reflux, failure to thrive, recurrent abdominal pain, constipation, celiac disease, and allergic bowel disorder.

We also have subspecialty clinics in functional gastrointestinal and motil­ity disorders, inflammatory bowel disease, eosinophilic esophagitis and allergic bowel disease, and intestinal failure. The most frequent diagno­ses of patients seen in the hepatology outpatient clinic include neonatal hepatitis, cholestatis, biliary atresia, chronic active hepatitis, cirrhosis, and allograft dysfunction.

The main hospital and outpatient center are locat­ed in the Lincoln Park neighborhood in Chicago. Fellows attend outpatient clinics at those two loca­tions. The Division also has satellite gastroenterol­ogy outpatient clinics in six suburban partner lo­cations: Arlington Heights, Glenview, Lake Forest, Tinley Park, Westchester, and Winfield.