(San Diego, CA, August 15, 2011) – Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego is pleased to announce that Ariel Feldstein, M.D. has joined the Hospital staff as the new Chief of the Pediatric Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition. Dr. Feldstein is regarded as a leading physician scientist in the field of pediatric hepatology.
“My vision is to continue to strengthen the work that is being done at Rady Children’s and in the next several years become one of the top 5 programs in the country,” said Feldstein. “I also want to develop new programs such as the inflammatory bowel disease center and expand the current liver disease program.”
Dr. Feldstein arrived from the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio where he served since 2004, and most recently held the position of Director of Research for the Pediatric Institute. His clinical expertise is centered on the field of pediatric Hepatology. He currently follows one of the largest populations of children with fatty liver disease, as well as autoimmune hepatitis and primary sclerosing cholangitis. While at the Cleveland Clinic, he developed the Pediatric Preventive Metabolic Clinic, a multi-disciplinary team of physicians, nurse practitioners, dietitians, exercise physiologists and other healthcare professionals who take a comprehensive approach to preventing the onset/progression of metabolic complications of obesity in children.
Dr. Feldstein has pioneered the development of non-invasive tests for assessing liver damage in patients with liver disease and holds various patents for these markers. His research is currently supported by several grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as well as foundation (American College of Gastroenterology) and industry (Nestle) grants. He has published extensively in high impact journals, including articles in Nature, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Gastroenterology and the Journal of Hepatology.
Dr. Feldstein has received a number of awards, including AGA Research Scholar Award, the Research Excellence in GI and Liver (REGAL) Award, The Cleveland Clinic Innovator Award, Best Doctors in America, America’s Top Pediatricians, and Who’s Who in Science and Engineering among others.
Dr. Feldstein attended the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina and completed his pediatric residency, gastroenterology fellowship and postdoctoral research fellowship in liver pathobiology at the Mayo Clinic in 2004.
Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego, the largest children’s hospital in California, is a 442-bed pediatric care facility providing the largest source of comprehensive pediatric medical services in San Diego, Southern Riverside and Imperial counties. Rady Children’s is the only hospital in the San Diego area dedicated exclusively to pediatric healthcare and is the region’s only designated pediatric trauma center. On October 10, 2010, Rady Children’s opened the Acute Care Pavilion, a LEED-Certified (green) building that is home to the incredible Peckham Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders, the state-of-the-art Warren Family Surgical Center, and a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit that cares for our community’s most fragile newborns. In May 2011, U.S. News & World Report ranked Rady Children’s among the best children’s hospitals in the nation in all ten pediatric specialties the magazine surveyed. For more information, visit www.rchsd.org and find us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.