General Pediatric Consultation Program

The General Pediatric Consultation Program is a medical diagnostic clinic for children with unusual or complicated symptoms that need further evaluation. If your child has symptoms that defy initial diagnosis and management with your primary provider, or doesn’t fall under one specific subspecialty category, we can provide you with a second opinion.

Our staff can also help facilitate a referral to particular subspecialists within Boston Children's.

Did you know: Our expertise

The Division of General Pediatrics sponsors a wide array of research activities through the division's several subunits.

In the Center for Adolescent Substance Abuse Research (CeASAR), our doctors are studying the epidemiology of drug and alcohol use in adolescents and young adults, and testing the applicability of screening for substance use in primary care.
Researchers in our Developmental Medicine Center are examining basic hypotheses generated by clinical observations of the behavior of children with developmental disabilities, especially autism, and are creating a data base of physical and behavioral characteristics of children with autism to match against genetic arrays.

Did you know: Eliminating unnecessary testing

When babies develop a fever high enough or abrupt enough to cause a seizure, frightened parents often rush them to the emergency room, where their workup frequently includes a lumbar puncture (spinal tap) to rule out bacterial meningitis. But researchers at Boston Children's have found that this uncomfortable procedure isn’t necessary in well-appearing children who have had a simple febrile seizure.