Peri-Operative Management in Children: Strategies for Achieving Optimal Nutrition in Surgical Patients (Part 1)

Sanja Kolaček, MD, PhD

Pediatric Gastroenterologist 
Children’s Hospital Zagreb 
Zagreb, Croatia

Sanja Kolaček finished the University of Zagreb Medical School, where she also received her MSc and PhD degrees. Following her training in Paediatrics, she was trained in Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition at various institutions, among which were also the Children's Hospital Birmingham, Liver Unit at the King's College Hospital London, and the Endoscopy Unit of the Gastroenterology Department at the Academish Medisch Centrum Amsterdam. In 2008, she was appointed as a Professor of Paediatrics at the Zagreb University Medical School. Within ESPGHAN, Kolaček is the current ESPGHAN President, elected in 2018. Previously, she served as the Secretary General, was/is an active member of the Working groups for IBD, acute diarrhea, and pre/probiotics, and for two terms was a member of the Committee of Nutrition. She is/was also serving in different ruling and educational bodies of the ECCO, ESPEN, UEG, and various Croatian medical associations. Her editorial activities include being Associate Editor of the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition (JPGN), and membership of the Advisory Board for the Journal of Crohn's and Colitis. Her main clinical interests include chronic enteropathies and chronic intestinal failure, clinical nutrition, and nutrition of healthy infants, while her present research activities are in the field of IBD, coeliac disease, probiotics, and disease-related malnutrition. Professor Kolaček has published more than 250 papers in peer-reviewed journals, has written many book chapters, and edited several textbooks, mainly in the field of paediatric nutrition and gastroenterology.

Mehul V. Raval, MD, MS

Associate Professor, Surgery and Pediatrics
Lurie Children’s Hospital 
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine 
Chicago, IL, USA

Mehul V. Raval, MD, MS, is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Surgery and Pediatrics at Northwestern University. He is also the Director of Lurie Children’s Division of Pediatric Surgery Research Scholars Program, which includes mentoring 6 general surgery research residents and a variety of pediatric plastic surgery, neurosurgery, and urology trainees. He serves as a principal investigator in the Surgical Outcomes and Quality Improvement Center at the Northwestern Institute for Public Health and Medicine. He is the Co-surgeon Champion for the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Project-Pediatric for Lurie Children’s Hospital. Dr Raval also holds clinical appointments at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Central DuPage Hospital, and Northwest Community Hospital, all in and around Chicago. 

Dr Raval is currently receiving extramural funding from the Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality to study the value of children’s surgical care using payment data from children’s hospitals that frequently perform surgical procedures. Most recently, he was awarded a $3.5M grant from the NIH to evaluate the implementation of enhanced recovery protocols in children’s surgery. Dr Raval was instrumental in establishing the ACS National Surgical Quality Improvement Project-Pediatric, a nationally recognized quality improvement program that is now in place at more than 150 hospitals and is an integral part of the Children’s Surgery Verification program. For his research, Dr Raval has earned the American Pediatric Surgery Association’s Judah Folkman Award and the American Academy of Pediatrics Surgical Section’s Rosenkrantz Award. 

He is currently the chair of the Quality and Safety Committee for the American Pediatric Surgery Association and Chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Delivery of Surgical Care Committee. Dr Raval has to his name more than 170 peer-reviewed publications, 15 chapters and invited reviews, and 200 presentations.