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Q What led you to a career in pediatrics?
I like children, but I think that working with the different manifestations of diseases at different levels of development is what I find most fascinating about pediatric medicine. A simple urinary tract infection in a baby can cause vomiting, crying and fussiness but an older child can say 'I'm burning while peeing', so it's really more challenging. You are also dealing with a wide age range, right from premature babies up to adults. In the USA, the pediatric age is officially 21 years of age, although we start transitioning most patients over to adult care at 18 years of age when they start going to college. The diversity of manifestations of various diseases is very challenging and interesting to me.
Q What specifically do you find interesting about gastroenterology?
Pediatric gastroenterology is still a very young field -it's only about 40 years or so old -compared with many others. And even during my career span of 30 years as a pediatric gastroenterologist, there has been tremendous evolution in all aspects of the field. In particular, a major change has been a tremendous increase in the application of technology. Now, we do not hesitate to do the endoscopies and biopsies that we would not have thought about doing 30 years ago in routine practice. I find the combination of clinical acumen with technological findings and its applications in the management of the patient most interesting.
Q Are there any particular individuals or events that played an important role in shaping your career?
I would like to start with an event, rather than an individual. I trained at Children's Hospital of Michigan (MI, USA), where the gastrointestinal division was not involved in research. So whenever I saw interesting cases, I would do a literature search and I published some case series and case reports. When I attended the first combined pediatric gastroenterology meeting of North America and Europe in New York City (NY, USA) in 1985, I looked around and saw my contemporaries presenting papers. Then I knew that I had to do something more than I was already doing. So I started looking for other collaborators in the hospital who were also interested in research. The...