Patient Care

Welcome to the Patient Care page of our Section of Pediatric Endocrinology!

The goals of the section of Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes are to provide consultation and clinical care for children and adolescents with a broad spectrum of endocrine disorders and to advance research that will improve the quality of life for children affected by endocrine disease. To this mission, to develop future specialists in this field, the division offers elective rotation educational activities for second- and third-year residents in both Pediatrics and combined Medicine-Pediatrics residency programs, UAMS senior medical students, adult endocrinology fellows. The section also maintains an ACGME accredited Pediatric Endocrine Fellowship Training program (please see the fellowship link for more details). We strongly believe in patient advocacy and research including Quality improvement projects to continue improving patient care and experience.

As the only academic sub- specialists in Pediatric Endocrinology, the board certified Pediatric endocrinologists, Advanced nurse practitioners and physician assistants collaborate with referring providers and other subspecialists to deliver seamless, high quality care to the children in Arkansas serving throughout the state with our clinics at Arkansas Children’s in Little Rock as well Arkansas Children’s Northwest in Springdale and Arkansas Children’s Pediatric Clinic in Jonesboro.

We are nationally recognized for our patient care through US News and World report ranking as well as the American Diabetes Association certification for our diabetes program.

Our Approach to Patient Care:

Our priority is providing compassionate, comprehensive, and patient-centered care to children and adolescents with endocrine disorders. We understand that each patient is unique, and we are committed to tailoring our approach to meet their individual needs.  From the moment a patient/family walk through our doors, we aim to provide compassionate care, clear communication, and a collaborative approach to treatment. We work closely with other specialties, including but not limited to Nephrology, Sleep Medicine, Oncology, Genetics and ENT, to provide integrated and coordinated care for our patients. Our multidisciplinary approach ensures that each patient receives comprehensive evaluation, personalized treatment planning, and ongoing support throughout their healthcare journey. While caring for chronic disorders like diabetes and obesity, we recognize the need for addressing barriers to care. Therefore, we have dedicated dieticians and social workers in the clinic.

We believe also in empowering our patients through continued education for their diagnosis and patient advocacy.

Comprehensive Specialized Clinics: Our Section offers a range of specialized clinics dedicated to addressing various endocrine conditions in collaboration with other specialists focused on addressing specific endocrine conditions, including:

• Endocrine clinic: Inpatient consultation and daily outpatient clinical services for general endocrine diseases, including but not limited to disorders of growth, disorders of puberty, disorders of sexual development, and congenital and acquired disorders of the adrenal, thyroid, pancreas, parathyroid, and pituitary glands.
• Diabetes clinic: Our team consists of pediatric endocrinologists, advanced practice pediatric nurse practitioners, physician assistants, working in collaboration with highly trained nurses, clinical diabetes educators, social workers and registered dieticians within Arkansas Children’s, and patients’ primary care givers to develop individualized treatments. We pride ourselves with having several members of our team with type 1 diabetes, some of who were inspired by the care they received at Arkansas Children’s and now formally part of the diabetes team.
• Weight Management and Bariatric Surgery: Our weight management clinic offers comprehensive services to help children and adolescents achieve and maintain a healthy weight. The focus is on making goals towards healthy lifestyles. Patients work with dedicated dietitians, physical therapists and medical providers. On a rotary basis, patients are able to access psychologists, sleep medicine specialists, nephrologists and gastroenterologists to ensure comprehensive assessment and avoid multiple specialist visits.

For eligible patients, we also provide access to bariatric surgery as a treatment option with close pre-operative and post-operative follow up to ensure best success for the patient.

We take care of all pediatric diabetes patients including those with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, MODY, steroid induced diabetes, Cystic fibrosis related diabetes.

We have been active to support diabetes technology access to our patients. Our faculty has participated in patient community educational programs as well.

We are proud to offer groundbreaking therapies such as TZIELD (teplizumab) for the early treatment of stage 2 type 1 diabetes, which has shown promising results in delaying the onset of clinical diabetes.

We participate and support annual residential diabetes camp through Camp Aldersgate during summer. This allows for our patients to see that diabetes does not need to limit them, provides much-needed confidence while having fun, developing social skills and sometimes life-long friendships!

We advocate for diabetes care for patients while at school as well. To this end, through 2021-22, our team participated in educating school nurses through out the state of Arkansas through grant via Blue and You.

Dexcom Discharge Program

We have developed protocols for diagnostic testing for Growth hormone deficiency, assessment of hypoglycemia using diagnostic fasting study, evaluate for patients with suspected Diabetes insipidus, adrenal insufficiency. If needed, we collaborate with country’s top centers of excellence to provide best care for children in the state.

Newborn screening for thyroid and congenital adrenal hyperplasia

Community outreach through sessions in corners of state such as Jonesboro to inform when to refer to endocrinology by Dr Oden.

• Metabolic Bone Disease: Using a similar multidisciplinary approach with several subspecialists, our metabolic bone disease clinic specializes in the diagnosis and management of conditions affecting bone health, such as osteogenesis imperfecta. Some ground breaking treatments offered

1. Crysvita (Burosumab) treatment for children 6 months of age and older with X-linked hypophosphatemia (XLH)
2. Voxzogo (Vosoritide) treatment for children with achrondroplasia

• Disorders of Sexual Development: This is also a multidisciplinary clinic to offer personalized nuanced care for children and adolescents with disorders of sexual development, offering comprehensive evaluation, management, and support.

This team consists of Geneticists, Pediatrics Urologists, Pediatric Gynecologists, Pediatric Psychology along with Pediatric endocrinology to offer expertise and follow latest care guidelines and recommendations and believe in shared decision making to do what’s best works for the family.

• Pediatric Thyroid Nodule and Cancer: Our thyroid cancer clinic offers expert diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up care for pediatric patients with thyroid cancer, ensuring the best possible outcomes.

Working with our ENT (Ear nose throat) surgeons, we discuss each patient as we believe that patients even those with same diagnoses are not the same. While caring for the patients, we believe in providing support to patient and family through the cancer journey and educating patients about their diagnosis to advocate as they transition to adult care. One of the interventions to improve patient outcomes after surgery to decrease post-operative hypocalcemia (low calcium levels) has to been to supplement with vitamin D pre-operatively.