UAMS Opens Adult Spina Bifida Clinic
| LITTLE ROCK – The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) has opened an adult Spina Bifida Clinic, the first multidisciplinary clinic available to adult patients in Arkansas.
Spina bifida is a developmental disorder caused by the incomplete closing of the embryonic neural tube before a baby is born.
The UAMS clinic will help coordinate the patients’ complex care needs with different UAMS specialists and with their primary care physicians. The clinic includes physicians and staff from urology, wound care nurses, and medical social workers who will coordinate with other UAMS medical services including physical medicine and rehabilitation, plastic and reconstructive surgery, general surgery, neurosurgery and orthopedics.
Each year, spina bifida patients seen at Arkansas Children’s Hospital turn 21 and must transition to adult care elsewhere. Spina bifida is the most common permanently disabling birth defect in the United States.
The formation of the adult Spina Bifida Clinic was led by UAMS’ Ehab Eltahawy, M.D., who has fellowship training in genitourinary reconstruction and neurogenic disorders of the urinary tract.
“Spina bifida patients and their families require this type of clinic because they’re struggling to access all the follow-up care they need,” Eltahawy said. “UAMS is in a unique position to offer a multidisciplinary clinic.”
UAMS is the state’s only health sciences university, with colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Professions and Public Health; a graduate school; a hospital; a main campus in Little Rock; a Northwest Arkansas regional campus in Fayetteville; a statewide network of regional campuses; and eight institutes: the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, Psychiatric Research Institute, Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging, Translational Research Institute, Institute for Digital Health & Innovation and the Institute for Community Health Innovation. UAMS includes UAMS Health, a statewide health system that encompasses all of UAMS’ clinical enterprise. UAMS is the only adult Level 1 trauma center in the state. UAMS has 3,485 students, 915 medical residents and fellows, and seven dental residents. It is the state’s largest public employer with more than 11,000 employees, including 1,200 physicians who provide care to patients at UAMS, its regional campuses, Arkansas Children’s, the VA Medical Center and Baptist Health. Visit www.uams.edu or uamshealth.com. Find us on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube or Instagram.
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