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By: Sara Davies Published Date: May 20 While only 25 percent of Alabama’s children are appropriately screened for developmental delay, 11 practices from across the state tripled developmental screening to 96 percent and nearly doubled autism screening to 91 percent over the course of a nine month quality improvement learning collaborative lead by the Alabama Child Health Improvement Alliance (ACHIA). Moreover, these practices reliably referred at-risk children to further evaluations and support such as Early Intervention and Help Me Grow. Practices in the Tuscaloosa area incorporated social-emotional screening to link children in need with behavioral resources piloted by Project LAUNCH. UAB staff involved in the ACHIA collaborative included: Myriam Peralta-Carcelen, M.D., FAAP, collaborative content expert; Justin Schwartz, M.D., FAAP,  guest speaker; and Cason Benton, M.D., FAAP was the course director and QI coach. Click here for an overview of the collaborative.

By: Sara Davies Published Date: May 20 Children in rural areas have high rates of medical complexity and often reside in low-income and medically underserved areas, according to researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. A study published in Pediatrics examines the inpatient health care utilization of rural children as compared to nonrural children, specifically the higher cost of hospitalization and increased frequency of readmissions.

Chang Wu, M.D., Pediatric Hospital Medicine, and Marjorie White, M.D., Pediatric Emergency Medicine, were among the investigators who looked at patient admissions in 41 freestanding tertiary-care pediatric hospitals across the United States, where rural children account for 12 percent of all admissions. The most common admissions were for asthma, bronchiolitis and seizures. Children from rural areas are particularly vulnerable, as they often experience worse health outcomes, and higher rates of obesity and tobacco exposure, and 71 percent had at least one chronic medical condition.
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Fox 6 News interviewed Dr. Wu in regards to this study. Click here to view the segment.

By: Sara Davies Published Date: May 20 The Office of Faculty Development is pleased to announce the inaugural class for the Department of Pediatrics (DOP) Faculty Scholars Program. Congratulations to: Heather Austin, Ph.D., General Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine; Krista Casazza, Ph.D., RD, LD, General Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine; JR Hartig, Ph.D., General Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine; Morissa Ladinsky, M.D., General Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine; Claire Lenker, LCSW, CCM, Pediatric Pulmonary; Leslie Rhodes, M.D., Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care; Mary Lauren Scott, M.D., Pediatric Endocrine; Nicole Sims, M.D., Pediatric Critical Care; Cassi Smola, M.D., Pediatric Hospital Medicine and Stephenie Wallace, M.D., MSPH, General Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
           
This one-year program is designed to strengthen our cadre of teaching faculty and support the development, implementation, and evaluation of innovative curricula designed to improve pediatric graduate medical education.

By: Sara Davies Published Date: May 13 The UAB Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS) recently acknowledged Department of Pediatrics (DOP) members who participated in the CCTS Panels Done Quickly (PDQ)/ Nascent Panel Project (NPP) team this past year. 

PDQs and NPPs provide investigators across the UAB Campus and throughout the CCTS Partner Network with expert feedback during a critical window of grant development - within 6 weeks of an application deadline. Reviewingproposals at this stage requires an agile, highly focused response that is only possible with the involvement of accomplished scientists. Those who participated from the DOP include: Drs. Smita Bhatia, Randy Cron, Maaike Everts, Tom Harris, Wendy Landier, Jeffrey Lebensburger, Melissa McBrayer, and Alyssa Reddy

By: Sara Davies Published Date: May 13 Cason Benton, MD, FAAP, has been selected to serve on the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) Portfolio Review Panel. Under the purview of the AAP Quality Cabinet, review panel members provide ongoing review and critique of part four MOC applications, bi-annual project reports, and final reports for projects submitted through the AAP MOC Portfolio.

By: Sara Davies Published Date: May 13 So… you say you weren’t able to join us for the first annual Pediatric Science Day.  Here is your chance to see the 20 pediatric platform presentations that were showcased. These included presentations by 12 pediatric fellows, six pediatric residents, one post doc in psychology, and one medical student. The link below will take you to individual links for the respective presentations. Thank you again for your interest, and we look forward to seeing you next year!

Click here to view the Pediatric Science Day 2015 Lectures.

By: Sara Davies Published Date: May 13 Krista Casazza, Ph.D., Associate Professor in General Pediatrics, and David Allison, Ph.D., Professor and Associate Dean of the School of Public Health, were highlighted in ConscienHealth for their writing in a Clinical Obesity publication titled, "Stagnation in the clinical, community and public health domain of obesity: the need for probative research." Click here to read more.

By: Sara Davies Published Date: May 13 On May 1, the Civitan - Sparks Clinics will join the Department of Pediatrics! This will now align these clinical and training efforts within the Department of Pediatrics and specifically with the new Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics (DDBP). Dr. Fred Biasini and colleagues will continue to provide interdisciplinary evaluations for children with neurodevelopmental disabilities and serve as a long and short-term training experience for many disciplines such as social work, audiology, psychology, occupational and physical therapy, speech/language pathology, nutrition, nursing, pediatric dentistry, and medicine. The Clinics are an important component of the Alabama University Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD), and are the home base of the MCH Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities  training program (LEND). Clinics include the Child Development Clinic, Behavioral Assessment Clinic, Psychoeducational Clinic, and Autism Clinic. Located in the UAB Community Health Building at 930 20th Street, the Civitan-Sparks Clinics also includes Sparks Pediatrics, a primary care clinic that serves healthy children as well as children with complex medical and social needs. Dr. Snehal Khatri, a developmental pediatrician, leads this team. All of these professionals are strongly committed to serving children with neurodevelopmental disabilities, and we welcome them to the Department of Pediatrics!

By: Sara Davies Published Date: May 13 The new division, approved by the Board of Trustees on April 8, represents a move to more fully align and integrate with other clinical divisions that provide care for congenital cardiac patients at Children's of Alabama, said Department Chair Dr. Keith A. (Tony) Jones. “Because of the highly complicated nature of these surgical procedures, the faculty members who provide this care have become highly subspecialized,” Jones said. “Moving forward, they will be fully dedicated to congenital cardiac anesthesiology and will have their own space at Children’s.”

Yung R. Lau, M.D., director of the Division of Pediatric Cardiology and the Thomas N. Carruthers Endowed Chair in Cardiology, welcomed the new division. “The formation of the Division of Congenital Cardiac Anesthesiology is a welcomed step by all the stakeholders of the Pediatric and Congenital Heart Center at Children’s of Alabama. We see this as an important part of the evolving understanding that congenital heart disease is one of the unique and signature programs that UAB has,” he said. “Having dedicated Congenital Cardiac Anesthesia colleagues codifies the practice of focused multidisciplinary care of patients as well as research efforts that contribute significantly to the knowledge.”
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By: Sara Davies Published Date: May 13 A panel of local doctors including Jaime McKinney, M.D., General Pediatrics, and educators discuss the complications of childhood poverty and what can be done to improve the quality of life in the news source Weld for Birmingham. Alabama is a poor state that consistently ranks among the lowest in categories pertaining to child poverty. A town hall meeting hosted by the UAB School of Medicine sought to address these issues last week.

“Frederick Douglass once said, ‘It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men,’” said Dr. Jaime McKinney, a general pediatrician at UAB who moderated the event. “I think that really encapsulates what we are trying to do.”

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By: Sara Davies Published Date: May 06 Children's of Alabama published the spring/summer 2016 issue of Inside Pediatrics, which highlights the excellent care provided by Children's of Alabama and the UAB Department of Pediatrics and Pediatric Surgery. 

Among the highlights: our innovative pediatric concussion clinic, global surgery program, and Alan Percy, M.D., as one of the world's leading experts in Rett Syndrome. 

If you have not received your printed issue, click here for a link to the electronic, flipping book version of the recent edition of Inside Pediatrics. Please feel free to share this link with any colleagues around the country.

By: Sara Davies Published Date: May 06 Prescott Atkinson, M.D., Ph.D., Division Director of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology, writes in Birmingham Medical News on potentially life-changing changes afoot for children with food allergies.

New medical research is ushering in big changes in how doctors think about food allergies and the way they will be treated in the near future. 

The turning point came last year with the LEAP (Learning Early About Peanut) Study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. This five-year study showed that avoidance of food allergens by children at risk for food allergy is often the wrong strategy, which, of course, is contrary to something doctors had been advising for decades. 

Data in the study were so powerful that doctors have already changed the advice they are giving to parents with children pre-disposed to food allergies. 
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By: Sara Davies Published Date: Apr 29 Click here to read an interview with Mary Halsey Maddox, M.D., Pediatric Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine, on Fox 6 WBRC. It's something adults can easily say we don't get enough of: sleep. But adults aren't the ones some doctors say we should be worried about. A new CDC study shows teens aren't getting enough rest - putting them at risk of injury and even death. It’s a concern Dr. Maddox says needs to be adjusted for kids and teenagers. 

"Over 50 percent of teenagers nationwide do not get sufficient sleep,” Dr. Maddox said. Dr. Maddox is a sleep medicine specialist. Typically, she says 56 percent of teenagers ages 15 to 17 get fewer than seven hours of sleep.
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By: Sara Davies Published Date: Apr 29 Avi Madan-Swain, Ph.D., Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, was a recipient of the 2015 Dean’s Excellence Award in Service. Click here to read the story in an ongoing series highlighting the 2015 award winners. 

One of the lessons Avi Madan-Swain learned early in life was the importance of seeing the beauty and good in individuals and reaching out to provide a helping hand to those in need.  She observed this directly through her experiences as a young woman studying to be a teacher and working at a school for multi-handicapped children in Kolkata (previously known as Calcutta), India.  It was the only school in Kolkata that provided services to school-aged children regardless of their ability to pay. 
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By: Sara Davies Published Date: Apr 29 Crystal Rutledge, M.D., Pediatric Critical Care, was selected to receive a 2016-2017 Faculty Development Grant Program award. The proposal, entitled “Assessing Emergency Care for Alabama's Children” has been funded for May 15, 2016 to August 30, 2017 from the UAB Office of the Provost and the Department of Pediatrics.

By: Sara Davies Published Date: Apr 29 Gregory Friedman, M.D., Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, received a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) R01 award for his project, "Ph1 of HSV G207 and Radiation to Treat Pediatric Brain Tumors IND16294," in the amount of $250,000 per year through 2018.

By: Sara Davies Published Date: Apr 29 The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Blue Ribbon Panel (BRP) has invited Smita Bhatia, M.D., MPH, Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, to participate in the BRP Working Group on Pediatric Cancer. Through participation, Dr. Bhatia will be filling an essential role in advising the Institute and the National Cancer Moonshot. 
 
In late January 2016, President Barack Obama announced the establishment of the National Cancer Moonshot initiative, led by Vice President Joe Biden. The initiative aims to accelerate current cancer research efforts and break down barriers to progress, making more therapies available to more patients, while also improving the ability to prevent cancer and detect it at an early stage.
 
The National Cancer Institute has assembled a Blue Ribbon Panel, a working group of the National Cancer Advisory Board (NCAB) that is charged with providing expert advice on the vision, proposed scientific goals, and implementation of the National Cancer Moonshot. The BRP will consider how to best advance the themes proposed for the Moonshot, including an intensive examination of the opportunities and impediments in cancer research. For more information, please click here. The findings and recommendations of the BRP and its Working Groups will be reported to the NCAB later this summer. Ultimately, the NCAB will use the BRP’s findings and recommendations to provide final recommendations to the NCI Director. Congratulations to Dr. Bhatia on this great honor!

By: Sara Davies Published Date: Apr 22 In the  UAB Magazine cover story, "The Meaning of Life: Palliative Care Makes Every Moment Count," read about Ashley Nichols, M.D., assistant professor in Internal Medicine & Pediatrics, specializing in Palliative Care at both UAB and Children's of Alabama. 

Dr. Nichols is the Medical Director of UAB's 12-bed Palliative and Comfort Care Unit. Palliative care helps patients get the most out of life, whether they’re newly diagnosed, a survivor, or nearing the end of their journey. UAB’s palliative care pioneers provide a fresh look at the fast-growing specialty and its emphasis on listening, choices, patient goals, and quality of life.
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By: Sara Davies Published Date: Apr 22 From among only 60 physicians selected in the United States, four physicians from the UAB School of Medicine have been named to the prestigious Association of American Physicians. Among those inducted are pediatric faculty members: Smita Bhatia, M.D., professor and vice chair for Outcomes in the Department of Pediatrics and director of the Institute for Cancer Outcomes and Survivorship and William Britt, M.D., professor in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases in the Department of Pediatrics. The other two faculty members from UAB are Ravi Bhatia, M.D., and Victor Thannickal, M.D.
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By: Sara Davies Published Date: Apr 22 An observational study of pregnant women in Brazil to further understand Zika virus and its impact on reproductive health and fetus development has been launched. William Britt, M.D., professor of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, leads the study, which complements his current research in Brazil on cytomegalovirus infection during pregnancy. CMV infection can lead to hearing and vision impairment in babies. Suresh Boppana, M.D., and Karen Fowler, M.D., professors in the UAB Department of Pediatrics, are co-investigators on this project.
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