Paediatric Endocrinology is the study of hormones in children and the effect that they have in growth, puberty and general development. Hormones are crucial in all aspects of not only physical, but emotional and pychosexual development, from as early as 5 weeks of pregnancy, to the end of our days. As paediatricians it is important that we ensure optimal growth and development for our young patients, and for those that have lifelong hormone abnormalities, that we put into place good transitional care and transfer arrangements for continued care throughout adult life. This is something we take very seriously in our service.
I deal with babies who have been born without the glands that make these hormones, or children and adolescents who may develop damage to previously normal glands later on in life. Absence of various hormones can be life threatening, delay intellectual and neurological growth, as well as affect attainment of height and appropriate puberty; these can all cause severe reduction in quality of life.
One of my particular interests is in looking after young people who have sustained damage to the pituitary gland (which is the master gland in the brain) following development of and treatment for brain tumours.
In addition I specialise in looking after babies who are born with disorders of sex development (DSD) who can present in the immediate newborn period with a genital appearance difficult to distinguish as clearly male or clearly female- obviously a very traumatic and distressing situation for the new parents and also the professionals looking after them and their baby.
The other highly specialised clinic that has now been running for 7 years and that has been driven by my special interest, is the Gender Incongruence clinic which allows young people who have issues with their gender identity to express their feelings,fears and wishes, and embark on a gender transitioning pathway (with rigorous selection and treatment criteria).
This is all on the background of on going general and specialty endocrinology clinics both in Leeds and in the wider region. We have the largest outreach service in the country and follow the dictum of providing care as close to home as possible.
I have 30 years’ experience in children’s medicine and over 20 years in children’s endocrinology.