Intestinal Rehabilitation and Nutrition Support Care Team

Dr. Namjoshi is the medical director of Intestinal Rehabilitation and Nutrition Support, and the medical director of the Children’s Home Pharmacy. Her career has focused on improving intestinal health in children, and recently she has completed research on malabsorption, nutrition deficiencies in intestinal failure, short bowel syndrome, and the development of gastrointestinal function. Dr. Namjoshi provides a full continuum of care for children with intestinal failure and understands the enormity of intestinal transplant, providing both medical expertise and emotional support to patients and families. She believes children can live a high-quality life on parenteral nutrition. To this end, she collaborates closely with patients and families to empower them to reach their intestinal health and lifestyle goals.

Dr. Dunn is the division chief of Pediatric Surgery. Dr. Dunn performs intestinal surgeries and completes intestinal research, most recently on enhancing the function of a child’s gut, mechanical lengthening of the small intestine, improving colonic motility, and understanding neuronal stem cell growth. Dr. Dunn strives to continually raise the bar on the standard of care for patients, ensuring that they receive the very best and most current treatment possible. He is personally motivated to find the ideal solution—with essential input from the family—that will restore a child’s health and change his or her direction for a lifetime. By engaging in novel research to improve the health of children, he hopes to help take care to the next level and provide options where none existed before.

Dr. Zhang is a board certified pediatric gastroenterologist who serves as the medical director of the Pediatric Intestinal Transplant Program at Stanford Medicine Children's Health. Intestinal transplant and intestinal rehabilitation are her true calling. She takes a straightforward, honest approach to care and values partnering with her patients and families. She is driven to help improve the intestinal health of every child in her care with research-proven treatments and leading edge approaches.

Marisa has managed the Children’s Home Pharmacy for more than 25 years. She strives to provide excellent care to patients by partnering with parents and providers to help patients meet personal milestones that improve their lives. The Home Pharmacy team becomes incredibly close to patients and families, and two of her most rewarding memories are being invited to celebrate an infant patient when she turned 16, and helping another child successfully transition off therapy after years of care. Having a medically fragile child is stressful, and Ng and the rest of the team do whatever they can to help reduce that stress by empowering families to keep their children at home with safe home therapy.

Jason is part of the world-class outpatient GI team at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health. He strives to provide high-level care by fostering an inclusive, non-judgmental, and compassionate environment for all by getting to know the clinic’s unique patients and families on an intimate level. He creates a partnership guided by a patient-centered approach that balances the medical needs of our patients, and any psychosocial factors that may influence care. His educational and professional background working with medically and behaviorally complex children and adults in the healthcare setting serves to establish a strong foundational premise for assessing and supporting the needs of our GI families.

Erin is a registered dietitian nutritionist with a broad range of experience in pediatric nutrition. As a certified nutrition support clinician, she has a passion for working with children and families living with chronic gastrointestinal conditions, especially those requiring long-term parenteral and/or enteral nutrition support. She uses her expertise to help empower children and families living with short bowel syndrome to find creative and individualized ways to ensure adequate nutrition that will support their intestinal rehabilitation while balancing other important aspect of growth such as meeting developmental milestones, maintaining social relationships, and enjoying a high quality of life. Knowing that home nutrition support can feel limiting, she and the rest of the team do everything possible to empower, encourage, and support children and their families to live their best lives.

Kavita is a social worker who enjoys providing comprehensive psychosocial care to her patients and their families. She encourages families to examine stressors brought on by a new GI diagnosis, establish coping skills, and consider further support around school and educational challenges when dealing with a chronic illness. Her educational background and clinical internships encompassed working with medically complex children and adults, and laying a foundation for understanding the needs of GI families.

Melissa is a clinical nurse with a specialty in intestinal rehabilitation. She was previously a floor RN on PCU 300 with the same patient population. She took her bedside knowledge of patients and needs to her position at Intestinal Rehabilitation. She is happy to teach, listen, educate, and promote independence to patients and families. As a newer addition to the IR team, she is excited to meet, encourage and support families along their Intestinal Rehab journey!