Constance Houck

My clinical and research activities are focused on modalities to reduce acute, procedural and postoperative pain in children. My recent work has focused on specific modalities to reduce pain for children undergoing open and robot-assisted laparoscopic urologic surgery. This has involved clinical research with the intravenous nonsteroidal medication, ketorolac, evaluating its safety and efficacy as well as its effect on bladder hyperreactivity (bladder spasms) after urologic surgery and the development of new treatment modalities to reduce diffuse abdominal and shoulder pain after laparoscopic surgery. I have recently expanded my research and advocacy focus to investigation of perioperative outcomes after common pediatric surgeries. As clinical director of the surgical hospitalist program at Boston Children's Hospital at Waltham and a member of the American College of Surgeons Task Force for Children's Surgical Care, I am involved in local and national outcomes research for children's surgery.