In selecting the topics for this inaugural textbook, three guiding principles have been followed. First, to include chapters that provide detailed information for the medical team – the doctors and nurses, the therapists and pharmacists, the chaplains and the child life workers – so that each team member can optimally recognize, prevent and treat patients with this disease. Second, to ensure that chapters cover the depth and breadth of the latest clinical and scientific research into NEC, each selected to identify specific preventative strategies or therapies for this disease. Third, and perhaps most importantly, to focus not only on the child with NEC, but also on the child’s family, in order to provide comprehensive information about a disease that families have barely heard about, until the jarring day when their precious infant is affected by it.
This book therefore:
Written for the entire health care team including paediatric surgeons, neonatologists, developmental paediatricians, epidemiologists, ethicists, child life professionals, therapists and specialist nurses, each team member will find this book of value. This book was written to demystify this cruel disease, and to unlock its closely held secrets of pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment and prevention.
David J. Hackam, MD, PhD, FACS.
Pediatric Surgeon-in-Chief and Co-Director, The Johns Hopkins Children’s Center
Garrett Professor and Chief of Pediatric Surgery,
Professor of Surgery, Pediatrics, Cell Biology, and Genetic Medicine
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Baltimore, Maryland , USA