Shaheen Timmapuri, MD, has joined the team of pediatric specialists at St. Luke’s University Health Network.

St. Luke’s recently opened a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at St. Luke’s University Hospital - Bethlehem. The new eight-bed unit is part of an $11-million expansion St. Luke’s has dedicated to improving pediatric health care in the region, and providing advanced care to critically-ill children close to home.

Dr. Timmapuri works closely with pediatricians, primary-care physicians and teams from St. Luke’s 12 other pediatric specialties, providing comprehensive care for children with complex health issues from infancy through adolescence.

She also collaborates with obstetricians and radiologists when abnormalities are detected during pregnancy, planning corrective surgery and educating parents before delivery.

Dr. Timmapuri treats a variety of disorders in children, including congenital anomalies (birth defects), hernias, appendicitis, skin lesions, cysts, lung masses and pyloric stenosis (thickening of the stomach muscle which blocks food from reaching the small intestine in newborns).

After receiving an undergraduate degree at The Pennsylvania State University, Dr. Timmapuri completed medical school at New Jersey Medical School, followed by a six-year residency at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and a two-year pediatric surgery fellowship at St. Christopher’s Children Hospital. Dr. Timmapuri recently received an MBA from The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania.

Following in her mother’s footsteps, Dr. Timmapuri wanted to be a physician for as long as she can remember. “I truly love science and helping people and medicine is the perfect marriage of those concepts,” said Dr. Timmapuri. “I especially love helping children. They have so much potential. They are our future.”

Dr. Timmapuri is part of a growing specialized pediatric surgical team at St. Luke’s which includes pediatric anesthesiologists, nurses and technicians.

Pediatricians, who provide full-service care to children, make evaluations on elective and non-emergent conditions, referring those families to Dr. Timmapuri. She is also available 24/7 for emergency cases.

“We are so pleased to have such a well-respected, highly-trained pediatric surgeon join our Network,” says Jennifer Janco, MD, Chair of Pediatrics at St. Luke’s. “In addition to the availability of high-quality pediatric surgical care, having a general pediatric surgeon at St. Luke’s provides our patients and families the convenience of having evaluations and procedures completed close to home.”