The Department of Pediatrics is one of the largest and oldest departments at St Johns. It offers comprehensive care in all aspects of child health. The Department has 90 general pediatric ward beds, a Pediatric ITU with 20 beds and Pediatric Emergency room with 14 beds.

The General Pediatric OPD functions on all days providing growth assessments, vaccination, well baby and consultations for sick child visits. The inpatient wards house children with complex diseases requiring tertiary and quarternary care services.

The Department of Pediatrics works closely with the following departments and divisions for comprehensive care of children from newborns to 18 years of age.

Department of Neonatology – newborn care

Department of Pediatric Critical Care – PICU services with state of the art life support systems

Department of Pediatric Nephrology – kidney care of children

Department of Pediatric Surgery – surgical care of newborns to adolescents

Division of Pediatric Oncology, Hematology and Stem Cell Transplantation – Childhood Cancer, Blood diseases and Bone marrow transplantation

Pediatric Emergency Services and PITU – for all types of Pediatric Emergencies and children who need close observation and monitoring

Pediatric Endocrinology Services – sub specialty care in Endocrinology

Adolescent Care Services – Teen Care Clinic with Adolescent specialist

Infectious Diseases Clinic and Tuberculosis Clinic - Expertise in rare infections and complex TB Unit of Hope – Comprehensive care of children with special needs

Asthma Clinic – special clinic for assessment and followup of children with asthma

Pediatric Chest clinic -subspeciality clinic run by Pediatric Pulmonologist for children with chronic Respiratory diseases.

History:
The Department of Pediatrics was initially in St Martha’s hospital with Dr RK Seth and Departmental Head. We shifted to St Johns in 1980 The Heads of Department since then have been Dr Padmini Urs, Dr MK Chandrashekar, Dr Gertrude Joshua , Dr Malathi Yeshwanth, Dr Swarna Rekha , Dr Subba Rao, Dr Kishore Phadke, Dr Sylvan Rego and Dr Sanjiv Lewin. The DCH programme started in 1985 and the MD programme in 1987. Since then services have expanded to include Neonatalogy, Pediatric Intensive care, Pediatric Nephrology, Developmental Pediatrics, Pediatric Hematology & Oncology, Pediatric Pulmonology, Adolescent care and Infections diseases. Fellowships in various sub-specialities initially under the Department of Pediatrics are being conducted by separate sub- specialty departments.

Noteworthy Past faculty:
The department has been fortunate and blessed enough to have faculties in the past such as Dr.Subba Rao, Dr Swarnarekha Bhat, Dr Kishore Phadke who are nationally acclaimed faculty in their respective areas and have immense contribution towards postgraduate learning and mentoring in numerable doctors all across the country. Dr (Prof.) Sanjiv Lewin, has been an excellent teacher and nationally acclaimed faculty with extensive contribution to the department in terms of initiation of Paediatric critical and PALS courses, paediatric HIV related services and so on.