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Dr. Stephen W. Bickler is a pediatric surgeon who has advanced fellowship training in pediatric surgery, tropical medicine and hygiene. As a pediatric surgeon at UCSD, he provides surgical care for children at Children’s Hospital and Health Center in San Diego. He was named one of San Diego’s Top Doctors in 2005, as selected by the San Diego County Medical Society in partnership with San Diego Magazine. Dr. Bickler has spent many years working as a pediatric surgeon in developing nations around the world. Recently he spent two and a half years in the Gambia in West Africa, where he was Consulting Pediatric Surgeon at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Banjul and the Medical Research Council Laboratories in Fajara. In 1999, he spent several months caring for children in a refugee camp with the International Medical Corps in Macedonia. He served as Attending Surgeon at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2004. He has also traveled to India, Pakistan, and Guyana as part of a team of plastic surgeons for Interplast, a nonprofit organization that provides free reconstructive surgery to children in developing countries.

Dr. Bickler has published extensively and has traveled widely in the United States and around the world to present lectures on pediatric surgery, injury prevention, and methods for improving healthcare for children in developing countries. He works with the World Health Organization and other organizations devoted to bringing medical attention to children in need. His recent publications include an article on the impact of war on children in Africa and an analysis of possible reasons for the absence of Western health problems such as high blood pressure and diabetes in Third World communities where sanitation is poor.

Dr. Bickler is certified by the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Pediatric Surgery. As a UCSD pediatric surgeon, he conducts patient clinics and performs surgeries at Children’s Hospital and Health Center as well as at UCSD’s two medical centers in Hillcrest and La Jolla.