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The Pediatric Clerkship Directors and Pediatric Residency Program Directors are excited to announce that applications for the Underrepresented in Medicine Senior Scholarship Program for Pediatrics at the University of Alabama School of Medicine are now being accepted. The Scholarship provides funding for visiting fourth year medical students to participate in four-week clinical rotations in the Department of Pediatrics. Our goal is to attract highly talented students from diverse cultural, socioeconomic, and ethnic backgrounds interested in the field of pediatrics to UAB, providing exposure to our excellent training program. Students from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine, including African American, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American, in addition to students whose backgrounds may bring a unique dimension to our training program, are encouraged to apply. Scholarship recipients will have an opportunity to network with faculty members within the Department of Pediatrics as well as UAB’s Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs. For more information, please contact Will Sasser, M.D. 

Mercedes-Benz United States International, Inc. has made a gift of $25,000 to Children’s of Alabama to support Children’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and the Pediatric & Congenital Heart Center. The gift will be used to support the family needs after discharge home from the Children's NICU or Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit. Specifically, the majority of the funds will be used to further develop the “Hearts at Home” monitoring program developed for high risk patients sent home after complex congenital heart surgery.
View the Children's press release.
To learn more about how this grant will help the "Hearts at Home" program, click here. 

Brian Sims, M.D., PhD, Neonatology, received a $50,000 award from the UAB Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) Development Core for his collaboration with Qiana Matthews, PhD, Infectious Disease. The award will be for one year in length to begin on March 15, 2016. The project is titled, "Cell Specific Exosomes Have Preferential Binding to HIV-1 and Facilitate HIV-1 Infection in the CNS."

The UAB School of Medicine will celebrate Match Day 2016 today, March 18 at the Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center. The first match will be announced at 11 a.m., following a short program that begins at 10:30 a.m. Watch the event live at www.uab.edu/matchday.

This year's recipients are Lydia McCormick and Claire Cordes. The recipients will work for eight weeks this summer with their mentors.
Lydia will research “The Effect of Maternal Smoking on Neonatal Acquired CFTR Dysfunction” with mentor Steven Rowe, M.D. Claire will research “Utility of Laboratory Testing in Pediatric Demyelinating Disorders” with mentor Jayne Ness, M.D.

A special thanks to this year's selection committee: Drs. Carolyn Ashworth, Lauren Nassetta, Will Sasser, and Terry Wall.

This program was established by Sergio Stagno, M.D., former chair of the Department of Pediatrics, to honor the memory of Dr. Russell Cunningham, a long time member of the Department of Pediatrics and strong advocate for medical student education. The program is designed to introduce students to pediatrics and pediatric research.

Congratulations to Ariel Salas, M.D., Neonatology, for being selected as a Society for Pediatric Research (SPR) Young Investigator Coaching Program recipient. The SPR Young Investigator Coaching Program (YICP) provides the opportunity for early-career investigators conducting child health research to receive mentoring from established national leaders in related research fields. 

Nominations remain open for the 2016 Dean’s Excellence Awards, an annual honor established to recognize the outstanding contributions made by faculty across the School of Medicine. Any full time-faculty member may nominate a faculty colleague for any of the awards; self-nominations are also accepted.

Click here for more information.

View the Children's of Alabama Annual Report for 2015 for a glimpse at some of the many accomplishments at Children's and the UAB Department of Pediatrics. Click here for for the full digital annual report, which includes the year in review, community, medicine and research efforts. Click here for the PDF printed supplement, which contains a few of the items from the full digital version. Please feel free to share the link and/or the PDF with your colleagues, family and friends.

The UAB Pediatric Pulmonary Asthma Program, in collaboration with UAB Lung Health Center, was recently selected as an Airways Clinical Research Center (ACRC) by the American Lung Association. The ACRC is the nation’s largest not-for-profit network of clinical researchers dedicated to asthma and COPD research. The network consists of 15-20 clinical sites and a data coordinating center. The ACRC  conducts large multi center clinical trials that directly impact the care of these patients. The Pediatric Asthma Research Program is led by Drs. Isabel Virella-Lowell and Terri Magruder. This is a great step forward for our program, allowing us to expand our research activities and further improve the care of patients at Children's of Alabama and across the U.S.

Randy Q. Cron, M.D., PhD, Pediatric Rheumatology, is a 2016 American Pediatric Society (APS) International Travel Grant Program (ITGP) application recipient. This will enable him to attend the 6th Congress of the European Academy of Pediatric Societies (EAPS 2016), Oct. 21-25, 2016, in Geneva, Switzerland. The goal of the APS ITGP is to foster international collaboration in the advancement of child health through participation and presentation of research and scholarly work by APS members at EAPS 2016. Congratulations to Dr. Cron.

This year’s race will begin at the Levite Jewish Community Center and occur on Montclair Road. This year's race benefits the Children's of Alabama Healthy Active Living Initiative & Reach Out and Read. The Spring Scramble 5K is one of several community outreach programs organized by the UAB Pediatrics Residency Program through our Community, Outreach and Advocacy Program. Join us April 16, 2016 for the 10th Annual Spring Scramble 5K & 1Mile Fun Run Live Music & Food Trucks! For more information, visit SpringScramble.org

The UAB Commission on the Status of Women recently selected the 2016 Outstanding Women Awards. Out of a total of eight women awarded, three were from the Department of Pediatrics. The commission will present awards to those honored as Outstanding Women for 2016 at a reception March 17, 2016 at the Alumni House. 

• Rebecca Cantu, M.D., Pediatric Hospital Medicine Fellow, received Outstanding Woman UAB Postdoctoral Fellow Award.
• Penny Jester, BSN, MPH, CCRC, Pediatric Infectious Disease, received Susan D. Marchase Outstanding Woman UAB Administrator Award.
• Michele Kong, M.D., Pediatric Critical Care, received Outstanding Woman in the Community Award. 

The American Association of Immunologists (AAI) selected Randy Q. Cron, M.D., PhD, Pediatric Rheumatology, to serve as a Block Symposium Chair during the AAI's annual meeting, IMMUNOLOGY 2016, in Seattle at the Washington State Convention Center in May 2016. Additionally, Dr. Cron was asked to serve a second term as a Journal of Immunology (JI) Section Editor. Section Editors provide key recommendation on every paper that is submitted to the JI. Dr. Cron was appointed for a two-year term, and has been asked to renew his appointment for an additional two-year term. Congratulations!

SPRINGING INTO PEDIATRIC RHEUMATOLOGY
Mini-Conference
Saturday – March 12, 2016
7:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Bradley Lecture Center 

All faculty, fellows, residents, students and employees can attend for FREE. Register here.

Non-UAB or Children's of Alabama employees, register here.

To view the informational flyer, click here.

Congratulations to Smita Bhatia, M.D., MPH, Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, and William J. Britt, M.D, Pediatric Infectious Diseases, on their recent election to the AAP. They will be introduced at the formal AAP dinner in April 2016 in Chicago, Illinois. The Association of American Physicians is a professional organization founded in 1885 by seven physicians, including Dr. William Osler, for “the advancement of scientific and practical medicine.” It is an honorific society and election to the AAP reflects well on UAB, the Department of Pediatrics and of course the individuals. We are extremely proud of Smita and Bill. Congratulations as well to two other UAB physicians, Drs. Ravi Bhatia and Victor Thannickal, both in the Department of Medicine, who were also elected this year. 

UAB Medicine's annual Employee Engagement Survey is one of the best tools for gathering staff input on what's working well, what isn't, and where change is needed most. Leadership looks closely at the results each year and uses the anonymous data to craft new policies that reward employees, make their jobs easier and more productive, and benefit the organization as a whole.

This is your survey, and your participation is invaluable. In 2015, the survey response rate was 74% for non-faculty employees, and we want to see that figure continue to rise.

This year's survey period is February 15-29, which is earlier than usual (more on that here). We hope to encourage greater participation by clarifying certain facts about the survey and sharing some insight into the process. Click here to read more about your privacy and how the survey results are used. 

This survey is open to participation for all regular part-time and full-time employees. If you have yet to receive your code, please see your administrative supervisor. If you have already received your code, what are you waiting for?  Let your voice be heard!

Take the 2016 Employee Engagement and Faculty Engagement Survey February 15-29

Please contact pedshelp@peds.uab.edu if employees have any issues with accessing the survey. We want everyone to have an opportunity to let their voice be heard.

Children’s of Alabama and the Kaul Pediatric Research Institute have announced the 2016 awards. The major goal of the KPRI grant program is to allow investigators to obtain data that will advantage applications for additional extramural funding. This will bring new knowledge to the care of children, leverage the investment of the KPRI, and allow projects to be competitive for the very best science on the national stage.  A second, but important, goal is to ensure that a dedicated funding source is available to unique segments of the pediatric research, education, and quality improvement enterprise.

This year there were three categories of grants that were funded: Established Investigator Awards, New Investigator Awards, and Quality/Safety/Educational Awards. All funded applications are directed toward the improvement of child health care. Thank you to all who submitted applications. We anticipate another request for applications next September. Read more

To view all the activities, events and ways to get involved in heart month, click here. 

Michele Kong, M.D., Pediatric Critical Care and her husband,Julian Maha, M.D., were selected to receive Distinguished Citizen of the Year Award given by Leadership Vestavia Hills at the 26th Annual Community Leadership Awards held on March 3. The event recognizes and celebrates exceptional members of the Vestavia Hills community whom have invested substantial efforts to improve the quality of life throughout the community and beyond. Drs. Kong and Maha are being honored in regards to their work with the non-profit they co-founded, KultureCity. 

The issue highlights the school’s efforts in innovation and integration to better serve its tripartite mission, as well as successes from the 2014-2015 academic year. Among the pediatric highlights: the cancer outcomes work of Smita Bhatia, M.D., M.P.H, Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, as well as, Waldemar F. Carlo, M.D., Pediatric Cardiology, quoted for a patient care story on hypoplastic left-heart syndrome. Click here to view the report.