Expansion at New York Methodist Hospital: Pediatric Surgery

Thanks to a recent expansion, New York Methodist Hospital (NYM), in Park Slope, can now provide on-site pediatric surgical care 24 hours a day, seven days a week. To ensure the highest quality pediatric surgery, pediatric surgeons Edward Shlasko, M.D., and Karen Chun, M.D., have joined the hospital staff.

Another addition to NYM’s offerings is a new minimally invasive pediatric surgical procedure — video assisted thorascopic surgery (VATS). VATS greatly reduces the recovery time for children with complicated cases of pneumonia by enabling surgeons to drain the fluid that can collect between a child’s lungs and ribcage when the infection becomes severe. “Patients recover from the actual operation itself almost immediately, but still need to stay in the hospital for a week or two in order to treat the underlying causes of pneumonia,” says Dr. Shlasko, who is chief of pediatric surgery.