There will be over 20 Children’s National Hospital-affiliated participants at this year’s American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference and Exhibition. The meeting will take place in Washington, D.C., from October 20 – October 24. We have compiled their sessions into a mini schedule below.
Lee Savio Beers, M.D., F.A.A.P., medical director of Community Health and Advocacy at the Child Health Advocacy Institute (CHAI) at Children’s National Hospital and president of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), delivered the President’s Address to AAP members around the world and held a keynote conversation with Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles about mental health during AAP’s National Conference and Exhibition.
After being introduced by her children, Charlotte and Jonah, Dr. Beers thanked AAP members around the world for their ability to adapt and provide quality care to patients throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. “The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our collective calculus of uncertainty, yet you continue to adapt and adjust to provide quality care in your clinics, emergency departments, ICU’s and exam rooms,” said Dr. Beers.
Dr. Beers continued by reflecting on accomplishments that AAP members and volunteers were able to achieve over the last year including the establishment of community immunization efforts, interim guidance provided on numerous pandemic-related issues and bi-weekly COVID-19 townhalls and educational sessions.
Shortly after her address, Dr. Beers sat down with Simone Biles to discuss the importance of advocating for mental health as an athlete.
During their conversation, Biles discussed the importance of making her mental health a priority by withdrawing from several events during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. She reflected on the outpouring support she received and how it made her feel.
Biles also offered advice for youth dealing with mental health issues and stressed the importance of reaching out to parents or peers so they can get the help and support they need.
AAP’s National Conference and Exhibition, held from October 8 through October 11, serves as an opportunity to keep pediatric providers abreast of the latest best practices in pediatrics and strives to meet participants’ identified educational needs and support their life-long learning with a goal of improving care for children and families.
Speaker and presentation information can be found here.
Simone Biles discussed the importance of making mental health a priority with Dr. Lee Savio Beers.
Two Children’s National Hospital cardiac care leaders received prestigious recognition awards from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) during that organization’s virtual National Conference and Exhibition in October 2021.
Gil Wernovsky, M.D., received the 2021 Maria Serratto Master Educator Award from AAP Section on Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery.
The Master Educator Award is presented each year to a pediatric cardiologist or cardiothoracic surgeon who exemplifies excellence as an educator, mentor and/or leader in the field.
A practicing cardiac critical care specialist with more than 30 years’ experience in pediatric cardiology, Dr. Wernovsky trained and mentored more than 300 fellows in pediatric cardiology, cardiac surgery, neonatology, critical care medicine and cardiac anesthesia, in addition to countless residents and fellows. He also organizes national and international symposia to share expertise around the world. During the COVID-19 public health emergency, for example, he co-founded the Congenital Heart Academy (CHA). The CHA provides content from an international faculty of cardiac care to more than 26,000 practitioners in 112 countries and includes a thriving YouTube channel.
Dr. Wernovsky is also a founding member of several international societies focused on bringing together clinicians, researchers and students across sub-specialties of pediatric cardiology and cardiac surgery for knowledge exchange and best practice sharing. These include: the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Society, World Society for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Surgery, the International Society of Pediatric Mechanical Circulatory Support and the Cardiac Neurodevelopmental Outcome Collaborative.
Dr. Wernovsky received the award on October 10 at the virtual Scientific Sessions of the 2021 American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference and Exhibition.
Gerard Martin, M.D., FAAP, FACC, FAHA, C. Richard Beyda Professor of Cardiology, Children’s National Hospital, received the AAP Section on Advances in Therapeutics and Technology (SOATT) Achievement Award.
The Section on Advances in Therapeutics and Technology (SOATT) educates physicians, stimulates research and development and consults on therapeutics and technology-related matters for the AAP. The Achievement Award recognizes someone who has shown leadership in applying innovative approaches to solve pressing problems.
Dr. Martin is the C. Richard Beyda Professor of Cardiology and has cared for children at Children’s National for more than 30 years. As an advocate for congenital heart disease efforts nationally and internationally, he played an integral role in the development of an innovative use of existing hospital technology—the pulse oximeter—to detect critical congenital heart disease in newborn babies.
Today, Dr. Martin and colleagues across the United States and around the world have worked to make this screening method a standard of care for newborns everywhere. It is a part of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Recommended Uniform Screening Panel and has become law in every state. They continue to conduct research to refine the recommendations and hone-in on the most effective ways to harness these tools.
Dr. Martin was selected for this award in 2020. He accepted it and offered remarks during the 2021 virtual AAP National Conference and Exhibition on Monday, October 11, 2021.
Each year the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Section on Bioethics presents the Academy’s highest honor in bioethics, the William G. Bartholome Award for Ethical Excellence. The award is named in honor of Dr. Bartholome, who made significant contributions to the field of pediatric ethics, and thus to the medical care of children. This year the Section proudly presented the award to Tomas Silber, M.D., M.A.S.S., adolescent medicine specialist and executive committee member of the Ethics Program at Children’s National Hospital and professor emeritus at George Washington University.
Dr. Silber has dedicated more than fifty years of work to reflecting, writing, teaching and devoting his energy to the divulgation of the field of pediatric ethics. He says it’s an honor to be recognized by his peers with this award.
“As a very young physician, I edited several issues of Pediatric Annals to Pediatric Ethics. One of the contributors I invited was actually Dr. Bartholome, whose seminal work on Pediatric Assent I had followed very closely and admiringly,” says Dr. Silber. “Forty years have passed since our work together, and it is a tremendous honor, now that I am emeritus, to receive the award named after him.”
As he reflects on the present day, Dr. Silber says one of the most important pediatric ethical issues is equity and social justice in the care of children and adolescents.
“Ethicists need to be proactive in dealing with systemic racism in medicine and provide consultations free of bias,” he says.
Dr. Silber is a graduate from the Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad de Buenos Aires. He did his first pediatric residency at El Hospital de Niños en Buenos Aires, his second pediatric residency at Thomas Jefferson University, as part of the community pediatrics track, his fellowship in adolescent medicine at Children’s National and his master’s in special studies (bioethics) at George Washington University. He is a fellow of the AAP, the Pediatric Society, the Academy for Eating Disorders and the Society for Adolescent Medicine and Health.
For several decades, Dr. Silber served as the director of the Pediatric Ethics Program at Children’s National.
“I am most proud of the thoughtful contributions of the multi-disciplinary team of the Ethics Committee at Children’s National, and above all how the torch has now passed to Dr. Vanessa Madrigal and her wise leadership,” says Dr. Silber.
Other standout career achievements include his leadership as chair of the Section on Bioethics of the AAP, and his contribution to the AAP Ethics Curriculum for Pediatric Residents and the chapter on adolescents in the Encyclopedia of Bioethics.
Dr. Silber extends his gratitude to the leadership of Children’s National, who he says made it possible for him to obtain his master’s degree, publish Pediatric Ethicscope and develop his skills as an ethics consultant and research subject advocate.
“Without the support I’ve been given at Children’s National, my work in the field of Pediatric Ethics would not have been possible,” he says.
“Having spent 30 years on the frontlines of pediatric healthcare as a surgeon, I saw so much innovation focused on adult medicine and not on pediatric populations. Instead, we were trying to adapt adult devices for use in children, which is not an effective solution,” says Dr. Newman.
The advancement of children’s medical devices in the U.S. continues to significantly lag behind adult devices for many reasons. A dedicated group of public and private sector healthcare leaders are working together to change that trend. In culmination of its first stage of work, the System of Hospitals for Innovation in Pediatrics – Medical Devices (SHIP-MD) initiative recently held a dynamic 3-day public workshop to further develop this groundbreaking public-private partnership, which is currently in its pre-consortium/conceptual phase.
Children’s National leaders and clinicians were among the pediatric healthcare experts who contributed to robust discussions about how to build and nurture a public-private partnership system that will safely accelerate the advancement of pediatric medical devices.
The workshop was developed and guided by a multi-stakeholder group including the Critical Path Institute (C-Path), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), AdvaMed, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and leaders of pediatric health systems.
“We must strive to improve medical devices for children, which historically lag five to 10 years behind adults. For many children, that can be a lifetime,” says Dr. Beers.
Reflecting its ongoing commitment to bridging the pediatric innovation gap, Children’s National Hospital experts co-led discussions throughout the program, which explored ways to improve children’s health by transforming the existing medical device ecosystem to stimulate investment and innovation in pediatric devices.
Children’s National Hospital President and CEO Kurt Newman, M.D., and Lee Beers, M.D., medical director for the Child Health Advocacy Institute at Children’s National Hospital served as opening session speakers, providing their insights into the current state of innovation in pediatric devices and why a new approach, such as SHIP-MD, is vitally needed.
“Having spent 30 years on the frontlines of pediatric healthcare as a surgeon, I saw so much innovation focused on adult medicine and not on pediatric populations. Instead, we were trying to adapt adult devices for use in children, which is not an effective solution,” says Dr. Newman. “Children’s National Hospital is proud to contribute to SHIP-MD’s pioneering efforts to address this critical disparity and reform pediatric device development in order to ensure that children, regardless of their age or condition, have access to the life-changing treatments and technologies they need to grow up stronger.”
An op-ed recently penned by Dr. Newman in STAT further explores the importance of public-private partnerships like SHIP-MD that are focused on fast-tracking innovation in medical devices for children.
Beers, who also serves as president of AAP, highlighted the fact that, as medical technology continues to advance, children are not reaping the benefits.
“Through the SHIP-MD initiative, we can work to ensure that the discipline of medical device development is equally understood and appreciated by its participating hospitals,” says Dr. Eskandanian.
“We must strive to improve medical devices for children, which historically lag five to 10 years behind adults. For many children, that can be a lifetime,” says Beers. “Much more needs to be done to address the countless hurdles that prohibit children from accessing the technology they need. The disproportionate rate of disease in minority children is another indicator that we must not cut corners as we look to improve pediatric innovation access.”
Kolaleh Eskandanian, Ph.D., M.B.A., P.M.P., vice president and chief innovation officer at Children’s National Hospital and principal investigator for the FDA-funded National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation (NCC-PDI), co-led the Qualifying Hospital Criteria panel, which addressed the importance of expanding the SHIP-MD network to medical institutions that have the infrastructure for the safe conduct of research.
“Through the SHIP-MD initiative, we can work to ensure that the discipline of medical device development is equally understood and appreciated by its participating hospitals. As champions of pediatric innovation, we must work to provide equitable access to device trials for every patient that qualifies,” says Eskandanian. “The goal of the Qualifying Hospital Criteria group is to introduce criteria that hospitals must meet in order to provide a safe environment to conduct pediatric medical device research and trials.”
Co-leading the Regulatory panel was Francesca Joseph, M.D., FAAP, a pediatrician at Children’s National Hospital and co-investigator for NCC-PDI. This workshop explored opportunities to address regulatory needs by refining current processes and considering new options to promote advancement of pediatric medical devices.
Co-leading the Regulatory panel was Dr. Francesca Joseph, a pediatrician at Children’s National Hospital and co-investigator for NCC-PDI.
In the closing session, Eskandanian and other panel experts recapped the workshop and discussed core factors that will help determine whether or not SHIP-MD’s network is prepared to enter Phase II, the consortium phase. This phase includes the development of a strategic plan that incorporates the short, medium and long-term goals needed to create and implement the framework enabling the official launch of SHIP-MD.
During his talk, Dr. Newman also shared the strategic steps being taken by Children’s National that complement the SHIP-MD initiative in advancing pediatric device innovation. Among these is the creation of the Children’s National Research & Innovation Campus (CNRIC), the first-of-its-kind pediatric research and innovation hub located in Washington, D.C., which includes on-site partners JLABS, Johnson & Johnson Innovation’s life science incubator, and Virginia Tech University. The campus will nurture a rich ecosystem for pediatric innovation in the nation’s capital.
“The past year has been a stark reminder about the importance of partnership and working together toward common goals,” says Dr. Beers. “I am humbled and honored to be taking on this role at such a pivotal moment for the future health and safety of not only children, but the community at large.”
Lee Savio Beers, M.D., F.A.A.P., medical director of Community Health and Advocacy at the Child Health Advocacy Institute (CHAI) at Children’s National Hospital, has begun her term as president of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). The AAP is an organization of 67,000 pediatricians committed to the optimal physical, mental and social health and well-being for all children – from infancy to adulthood.
“The past year has been a stark reminder about the importance of partnership and working together toward common goals,” says Dr. Beers. “I am humbled and honored to be taking on this role at such a pivotal moment for the future health and safety of not only children, but the community at large.”
Dr. Beers has pledged to continue AAP’s advocacy and public policy efforts and to further enhance membership diversity and inclusion. Among her signature issues:
Dr. Beers is looking forward to continuing her work bringing together the diverse voices of pediatricians, children and families as well as other organizations to support improving the health of all children.
“Dr. Beers has devoted her career to helping children,” says Kurt Newman, M.D., president and chief executive officer of Children’s National. “She has developed a national advocacy platform for children and will be of tremendous service to children within AAP national leadership.”
Read more about Dr. Beer’s career and appointment as president of the AAP.
This past fall, Nadia Merchant, M.D., joined Children’s National Hospital as an endocrinologist in the Endocrinology and Diabetes Department. Dr. Merchant received her undergraduate and medical education at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar. She completed her pediatric residency at Wright State Boonshoft School of Medicine. She then completed her genetics residency and pediatric endocrine fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine/Texas Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Merchant was born with acromesomelic dysplasia, a rare genetic disorder, but that hasn’t stopped her from pursuing her medical career. While at Baylor College of Medicine, Dr. Merchant was very active in quality improvement projects, research and organizations that raise awareness of endocrine related conditions. For several years, she was a moderator at Baylor College of Medicine for “From Stress to Strength,” at a course for parents of children with genetic disorders and autism. Dr. Merchant also served as an endocrine fellow representative on the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Endocrinology (SOEn) for the last two years and also served on the committee for a Bone and Mineral special interest group within the Pediatric Endocrine Society (PES). During medical school, she worked with Positive Exposure, an organization that uses visual arts to celebrate human diversity for individuals living with genetic, physical, behavioral and intellectual differences.
During the 2019 Endocrine Society Annual Meeting, Dr. Merchant won the Presidential Poster Award for her poster presentation: Assessing Metacarpal Cortical Thickness as a Tool to Evaluate Bone Density Compared to DXA in Osteogenesis Imperfecta a research project assessing whether hand film is an additional tool to detect low bone mineral density in children.
Dr. Nadia Merchant is currently one of the endocrinologists in the multidisciplinary bone health clinic at Children’s National, a clinic dedicated to addressing and improving bone health in children. Dr. Merchant also manages endocrine manifestations in children with rare genetic disorders.
The Endocrinology department at Children’s National is ranked among the best in the nation by “U.S. News & World Report”.
Drs. Tarini, Steinhorn and Beers are also in leadership roles within professional societies, elected by their peers, further highlighting the strength of the leadership at Children’s National and professional respect within the health care community.
Three Children’s National Hospital executives are also in leadership roles within professional societies, elected by their peers, further highlighting the strength of the leadership at Children’s National and professional respect within the health care community.
Lee Savio Beers, M.D., FAAP, medical director of Community Health and Advocacy at the Child Health Advocacy Institute (CHAI) at Children’s National, was elected by her peers to become president-elect of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) beginning Jan. 1, 2020. Dr. Beers will then serve as AAP president in 2021 for a one-year term.
“I am humbled and honored to have the support of my peers in taking on this newest leadership role,” says Dr. Beers. “AAP has been a part of my life since I first became a pediatrician, and my many leadership roles in the DC chapter and national AAP have given me a glimpse of the collective good we pediatricians can accomplish by working together toward common strategic goals.”
Dr. Beers is looking forward to continuing her work bringing together the diverse voices of pediatricians, children and families as well as other organizations to support improving the health of all children.
Robin Steinhorn, M.D., senior vice president of the Center for Hospital-Based Specialties at Children’s National was elected by her peers to become Vice President and President-elect of the American Pediatric Society (APS) in May 2018 and she is currently serving her role as the Society’s president, which began in May 2019.
“This is a tremendous honor. I look forward to leveraging the collective leadership and research accomplishments by our members to improve the health of infants and children throughout the U.S.,” said Dr. Steinhorn.
Dr. Steinhorn is particularly passionate about mentoring faculty and supporting the growth and career development of young neonatologists and scientists, with several having developed their own research laboratories and assumed division and department leadership positions. She was selected as a ‘Top Doctor’ by Northern Virginia Magazine in 2019.
Beth A. Tarini, M.D., MS, associate director, Center for Translational Research at The Children’s Research Institute, became vice president of the Society for Pediatric Research (SPR) in May 2019. Dr. Tarini will transition to President-Elect in May 2020 and become President in May 2021.
Dr. Tarini’s personal mission during this tenure will be to ensure that more pediatric researchers get to know SPR and are so excited about the organization that they become active members.
Dr. Tarini says she looks forward to working with other SPR leaders to find ways to build more productive, collaborative professional networks among faculty, especially emerging junior faculty. “Facilitating ways to network for research and professional reasons across pediatric research is vital – albeit easier said than done. I have been told I’m a connector, so I hope to leverage that skill in this new role,” says Dr. Tarini.
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“We know that bariatric surgery improves markers of kidney health in severely obese adults and adolescents,” says Marva Moxey-Mims, M.D. “This research helps to elucidate possible differences in kidney disease outcomes between children and adults post-surgery.”
Adolescents with Type 2 diabetes experienced more hyperfiltration and earlier attenuation of their elevated urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio (UACR) after gastric bypass surgery compared with adults. This finding contrasts with adolescents or adults who did not have diabetes prior to surgery, according to research presented Nov. 8, 2019, during the American Society of Nephrology’s Kidney Week 2019, the world’s largest gathering of kidney researchers.
“Findings from this work support a recent policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) that advocates for increasing severely obese youths’ access to bariatric surgery,” says Marva Moxey-Mims, M.D., Chief of the Division of Nephrology at Children’s National Hospital and a study co-author. “We know that bariatric surgery improves markers of kidney health in severely obese adults and adolescents. This research helps to elucidate possible differences in kidney disease outcomes between children and adults post-surgery.”
According to the AAP, the prevalence of severe obesity in youth aged 12 to 19 has nearly doubled since 1999. Now, 4.5 million U.S. children are affected by severe obesity, defined as having a body mass index ≥35 or ≥120% of the 95th percentile for age and sex.
In a Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, the surgeon staples the stomach to make it smaller, so people eat less. Then, they attach the lower part of the small intestine in a way that bypasses most of the stomach so the body takes in fewer calories.
The multi-institutional study team examined the health effects of such gastric bypass surgeries by comparing 161 adolescents with 396 adults enrolled in related studies. They compared their estimated glomerular filtration rates by serum creatinine and cystatin C. UACR was also compared at various time periods, up till five years after surgery.
Across the board, adolescents had higher UACR – a key marker for chronic kidney disease – than adults. However, for kids who had Type 2 diabetes prior to surgery, the prevalence of elevated UACR levels dip from 29% pre-surgery to 6% one year post-surgery. By contrast, adults who had diabetes prior to surgery and elevated UACR did not see a significant reduction in UACR until five years post-surgery.
While hyperfiltration prevalence was similar in study participants who did not have Type 2 diabetes, adolescents who had Type 2 diabetes prior to surgery had an increased prevalence of hyperfiltration for the duration of the study period.
Financial support for research described in this post was provided by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
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ASN Kidney Week 2019 presentation
“Five-year kidney outcomes of bariatric surgery in adolescents compared with adults”
Friday, Nov. 8, 2019, 10 a.m. to noon (EST)
Petter Bjornstad, University of Colorado School of Medicine; Todd Jenkins, Edward Nehus and Mark Mitsnefes, all of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital; Marva M. Moxey-Mims, Children’s National Hospital; and Thomas H. Inge, Children’s Hospital Colorado.
To help practitioners appraise medical literature, Bernhard Wiedermann, M.D., MA, suggests determining where it fits on this pyramid.
Practitioners often read journal articles to help inform them about best clinical practices and policies, but some may not feel comfortable changing their clinical practice in the absence of published practice guidelines.
During this year’s American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference and Exhibition, Bernhard Wiedermann, M.D., MA, an infectious disease specialist at Children’s National Hospital, spoke to a room full of pediatric providers about how to stay current with medical literature, quickly analyze the material and decide whether to apply it to their practice. “This interactive session served to help primary care pediatric providers understand how to critically appraise what they are reading in medical literature,” says Dr. Wiedermann. “Practitioners need to be able to critically read journal articles to better decide when to apply new studies or recommendations to their clinical practice.”
Dr. Wiedermann’s presentation, entitled “Should that new article change your practice? The five easy pieces of literature appraisal for busy front-line providers,” covered:
At the session, attendees gained the ability to develop a streamlined plan to keep current with the medical literature, apply simple strategies to select and appraise potentially worthwhile articles and discuss new management options with patients and families.
Tessie October, M.D., M.P.H., led a qualitative study that discovered an increase in important information shared from families to the physician when physicians had openly responded with empathy and made time for families to share.
When critically ill children are in the intensive care unit (ICU), physicians must often lead difficult discussions with their families about the direction of care. These family conferences can be challenging for both the doctors leading them and for the families, who are unsure of their options, are under emotional strain and who may feel pressured to make decisions.
“We have patients with serious illnesses discussing major decisions and we don’t do a great job thinking about how to structure those meetings,” says Tessie October, M.D., M.P.H., a critical care specialist at Children’s National Hospital.
Dr. October seeks to help doctors better bridge the gap between themselves and families with her presentation entitled “All in the family: How to run an effective family meeting,” which she presented during the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans on October 28th.
During her session, Dr. October role-played a family conference scenario and allowed the audience to experience key skills needed to successfully facilitate them. “Many people think family conferences are about being nice and assume that physicians know how to do this well,” says October. “There is a skill to navigating the conversation where you ensure that the family hears what you’re saying and you respond to the emotions that follow.”
Dr. October led a qualitative study that discovered an increase in important information shared from families to the physician when physicians had openly responded with empathy and made time for families to share. “Families experience increased satisfaction, physicians become more confident in leading these family conferences and the time needed to make medical decisions is shortened because the family heard the information clearly enough for them to make the decision,” says Dr. October.
Within her study, the 68 recorded conferences that took place at Children’s National pediatric ICU (PICU) showed that physicians missed opportunities to respond to the emotions expressed by a patient’s family in 26% of their interactions. “Families want a doctor to be professional caregiver, to be honest with them, and to present clear information that allows the family to make an informed decision.”
Dr. October and her colleagues intend to help physicians learn to communicate better, starting at Children’s National. “My goal is to expand the program hospital-wide, starting with hematology, neonatology, emergency medicine and cardiology fellows, all of whom will most likely have these difficult treatment and end-of-life discussions with families at some point.”
Dr. Kumthekar and Charles Berul, M.D., chief of Cardiology, discuss less invasive approaches for infants who require pacemaker and defibrillator placements.
Efforts to develop surgical approaches that would eliminate the need for complex, open surgery when placing pacemakers in tiny infants and young children has earned cardiology fellow Rohan Kumthekar, M.D., the American Academy of Pediatrics Cardiology Research Fellowship Award.
“Placing a pacemaker in a small child is different than operating on an adult, due to their small chest cavity and narrow blood vessels,” said Dr. Kumthekar in a 2018 interview about the proof of concept study for this work. “By eliminating the need to cut through the sternum or the ribs and fully open the chest to implant a pacemaker, the current model, we can cut down on surgical time and help alleviate pain.”
“We hope that this approach to lead placement eliminates the need for surgery in this group of pediatric patients,” he further explains in the 2019 award announcement. “This research could have a transformative impact in changing the current clinical standard for pacemaker and ICD implantation in pediatric patients by converting an open surgical approach to a minimally invasive procedure.”
The award, which is supported by the Children’s Heart Foundation, provides research support for an individual who has demonstrated aptitude for basic science or clinical science research during their pediatric cardiology fellowship.
Lee Savio Beers, M.D., FAAP, Medical Director of Community Health and Advocacy at the Child Health Advocacy Institute (CHAI) at Children’s National Hospital carved out a Monday morning in late-September 2019, as she knew the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) would announce the results of its presidential election, first by telephone call, then by an email to all of its members. Her husband blocked off the morning as well to wait with her for the results. She soon got the call that she was elected by her peers to become AAP president-elect, beginning Jan. 1, 2020. Dr. Beers will then serve as AAP president in 2021 for a one-year term.
That day swept by in a rush, and then the next day she was back in clinic, caring for her patients, some of them teenagers whom she had taken care of since birth. Seeing children and families she had known for such a long time, some of whom had complex medical needs, was a perfect reminder of what originally motivated Dr. Beers to be considered as a candidate in the election.
“When we all work together – with our colleagues, other professionals, communities and families – we can make a real difference in the lives of children. So many people have reached out to share their congratulations, and offer their support or help. There is a real sense of collaboration and commitment to child health,” Dr. Beers says.
That sense of excitement ripples through Children’s National.
“Dr. Beers has devoted her career to helping children. She has developed a national advocacy platform for children. I can think of no better selection for the president-elect role of the AAP. She will be of tremendous service to children within AAP national leadership,” says Kurt Newman, M.D., Children’s National Hospital President and CEO.
AAP comprises 67,000 pediatricians, and its mission is to promote and safeguard the health and well-being of all children – from infancy to adulthood.
The daughter of a nuclear engineer and a schoolteacher, Dr. Beers knew by age 5 that she would become a doctor. Trained as a chemist, she entered the Emory University School of Medicine after graduation. After completing residency at the Naval Medical Center, she became the only pediatrician assigned to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station.
That assignment to Cuba, occurring so early in her career, turned out to be a defining moment that shapes how she partners with families and other members of the team to provide comprehensive care.
“I was a brand-new physician, straight out of residency, and was the only pediatrician there so I was responsible for the health of all of the kids on the base. I didn’t know it would be this way at the time, but it was formative. It taught me to take a comprehensive public health approach to taking care of kids and their families,” she recalls.
On the isolated base, where she also ran the immunization clinic and the nursery, she quickly learned she had to judiciously use resources and work together as a team.
“It meant that I had to learn how to lead a multi-disciplinary team and think about how our health care systems support or get in the way of good care,” she says.
One common thread that unites her past and present is helping families build resiliency to shrug off adversity and stress.
“The base was a difficult and isolated place for some families and individuals, so I thought a lot about how to support them. One way is finding strong relationships where you are, which was important for patients and families miles away from their support systems. Another way is to find things you could do that were meaningful to you.”
Cuba sits where the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico meet. Dr. Beers learned how to scuba dive there – something she never would have done otherwise – finding it restful and restorative to appreciate the underwater beauty.
“I do think these lessons about resilience are universal. There are actually a lot of similarities between the families I take care of now, many of whom are in socioeconomically vulnerable situations, and military families when you think about the level of stress they are exposed to,” she adds.
Back stateside in 2001, Dr. Beers worked as a staff pediatrician at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. In 2003, Dr. Beers joined Children’s National Hospital as a general pediatrician in the Goldberg Center for Community Pediatric Health. Currently, she oversees the DC Collaborative for Mental Health in Pediatric Primary Care, a public-private coalition that elevates the standards of mental health care for all children, and is Co-Director of the Early Childhood Innovation Network. She received the Academic Pediatric Association’s 2019 Public Policy and Advocacy Award.
As a candidate, Dr. Beers pledged to continue AAP’s advocacy and public policy efforts and to further enhance membership diversity and inclusion. Among her signature issues:
“I am humbled and honored to have the support of my peers in taking on this newest leadership role,” says Dr. Beers. “AAP has been a part of my life since I first became a pediatrician, and my many leadership roles in the DC chapter and national AAP have given me a glimpse of the collective good that pediatricians can accomplish by working together toward common strategic goals.”
AAP isn’t just an integral part of her life, it’s where she met her future husband, Nathaniel Beers, M.D., MPA, FAAP, President of The HSC Health Care System. The couple’s children regularly attended AAP meetings with them when they were young.
Just take a glimpse at Lee Beers’ Twitter news feed. There’s a steady stream of images of her jogging before AAP meetings to amazing sunrises, jogging after AAP meetings to stellar sunsets and always, always, images of the entire family, once collectively costumed as The Incredibles.
“I really do believe that we have to set an example: If we are talking about supporting children and families in our work, we have to set that example in our own lives. That looks different for everyone, but as pediatricians and health professionals, we can model prioritizing our families while still being committed to our work,” she explains.
“Being together in the midst of the craziness is just part of what we do as a family. We travel a lot, and our kids have gone with us to AAP meetings since they were infants. My husband even brought our infant son to a meeting at the mayor’s office when he was on paternity leave. Recognizing that not everyone is in a position to be able to do things like that, it’s important for us to do it – to continue to change the conversation and make it normal to have your family to be part of your whole life, not have a separate work life and a separate family life.”
Quick. Name four pillar pediatric organizations on the vanguard of advancing pediatric research.
Most researchers and clinicians can rattle off the names of the Academic Pediatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Pediatric Society. But that fourth one, the Society for Pediatric Research (SPR), is a little trickier. While many know SPR, a lot of research-clinicians simply do not.
Over the next few years, Beth A. Tarini, M.D., MS, will make it her personal mission to ensure that more pediatric researchers get to know SPR and are so excited about the organization that they become active members. In May 2019 Dr. Tarini becomes Vice President of the society that aims to stitch together an international network of interdisciplinary researchers to improve kids’ health. Four-year SPR leadership terms begin with Vice President before transitioning to President-Elect, President and Past-President, each for one year.
Dr. Tarini says she looks forward to working with other SPR leaders to find ways to build more productive, collaborative professional networks among faculty, especially emerging junior faculty. “Facilitating ways to network for research and professional reasons across pediatric research is vital – albeit easier said than done. I have been told I’m a connector, so I hope to leverage that skill in this new role,” says Dr. Tarini, associate director for Children’s Center for Translational Research.
“I’m delighted that Dr. Tarini was elected to this leadership position, and I am impressed by her vision of improving SPR’s outreach efforts,” says Mark Batshaw, M.D., Executive Vice President, Chief Academic Officer and Physician-in-Chief at Children’s National. “Her goal of engaging potential members in networking through a variety of ways – face-to-face as well as leveraging digital platforms like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn – and her focus on engaging junior faculty will help strengthen SPR membership in the near term and long term.”
Dr. Tarini adds: “Success to me would be leaving after four years with more faculty – especially junior faculty – approaching membership in SPR with the knowledge and enthusiasm that they bring to membership in other pediatric societies.”
SPR requires that its members not simply conduct research, but move the needle in their chosen discipline. In her research, Dr. Tarini has focused on ensuring that population-based newborn screening programs function efficiently and effectively with fewer hiccups at any place along the process.
Thanks to a heel stick to draw blood, an oxygen measurement, and a hearing test, U.S. babies are screened for select inherited health conditions, expediting treatment for infants and reducing the chances they’ll experience long-term health consequences.
“The complexity of this program that is able to test nearly all 4 million babies in the U.S. each year is nothing short of astounding. You have to know the child is born – anywhere in the state – and then between 24 and 48 hours of birth you have to do testing onsite, obtain a specific type of blood sample, send the blood sample to an off-site lab quickly, test the sample, find the child if the test is out of range, get the child evaluated and tested for the condition, then send them for treatment. Given the time pressures as well as the coordination of numerous people and organizations, the fact that this happens routinely is amazing. And like any complex process, there is always room for improvement,” she says.
Dr. Tarini’s research efforts have focused on those process improvements.
As just one example, the Advisory Committee on Heritable Disorders in Newborns and Children, a federal advisory committee on which she serves, was discussing how to eliminate delays in specimen processing to provide speedier results to families. One possible solution floated was to open labs all seven days, rather than just five days a week. Dr. Tarini advocated for partnering with health care engineers who could help model ways to make the specimen transport process more efficient, just like airlines and mail delivery services. A more efficient and effective solution was to match the specimen pick-up and delivery times more closely with the lab’s operational times – which maximizes lab resources and shortens wait times for parents.
Conceptual modeling comes so easily for her that she often leaps out of her seat mid-sentence, underscoring a point by jotting thoughts on a white board, doing it so often that her pens have run dry.
“It’s like a bus schedule: You want to find a bus that not only takes you to your destination but gets you there on time,” she says.
Dr. Tarini’s current observational study looks for opportunities to improve how parents in Minnesota and Iowa are given out-of-range newborn screening test results – especially false positives – and how that experience might shake their confidence in their child’s health as well as heighten their own stress level.
“After a false positive test result, are there parents who walk away from newborn screening with lingering stress about their child’s health? Can we predict who those parents might be and help them?” she asks.
Among the challenges is the newborn screening occurs so quickly after delivery that some emotionally and physically exhausted parents may not remember it was done. Then they get a call from the state with ominous results. Another challenge is standardizing communication approaches across dozens of birthing centers and hospitals.
“We know parents are concerned after receiving a false positive result, and some worry their infant remains vulnerable,” she says. “Can we change how we communicate – not just what we say, but how we say it – to alleviate those concerns?”
“Some of these women had no idea how common postpartum depression was,” says Lenore Jarvis, M.D., M.Ed. “They thought they were crazy and felt alone and were bad moms.”
It’s a scenario that Children’s emergency medicine specialist Lenore Jarvis, M.D., M.Ed., has seen countless times: A mother brings her infant to the emergency department (ED) in the middle of the night with a chief complaint of the baby being fussy. Nothing she does can stop the incessant crying, she tells the triage nurse. When doctors examine the baby, they don’t see anything wrong. Often, this finding is reassuring. But, despite their best efforts to comfort her, the mother isn’t reassured and leaves the hospital feeling anxious and overwhelmed.
After these encounters, Dr. Jarvis wondered: Might the mother be the actual patient?
Postpartum depression (PPD) is the most common complication of childbirth, Dr. Jarvis explains, occurring in up to 20 percent of all mothers, and may be higher (up to 50 percent) in low-income and immigrant women. Far beyond simple “baby blues,” the mood disorder can have significant implications for the mother, her baby and the entire family. It can hinder mother-child bonding and lead to early discontinuation of breastfeeding, delayed immunizations, and child abuse and neglect. The associated effects on early brain development might cause cognitive and developmental delays for the infant and, later in life, can manifest as emotional and behavioral problems. PPD can disrupt relationships between parents. And suicide is the top cause of postpartum death.
Mothers are supposed to be screened routinely for PPD at postpartum visits with their maternal or pediatric health care providers. In addition, several medical professional societies – including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists – now recommend screening for PPD in the prenatal and postnatal periods and during routine well-child visits in the outpatient setting. But these screenings often don’t happen, Dr. Jarvis says, either because doctors aren’t following the recommendations or parents aren’t attending these visits due to barriers to health care access or other problems.
One way to sidestep these challenges, she says, is to provide PPD screening in the emergency setting.
“The ED becomes the safety net for people who are not routinely accessing regular checkups for themselves and their children,” Dr. Jarvis says. “If a mother is having an acute crisis in the middle of the night and feeling anxious and depressed, they often come to the emergency department for help.”
Dr. Jarvis and colleagues launched a pilot study in the Children’s ED to screen for PPD. For eight months beginning June 2015, the researchers invited English- and Spanish-speaking mothers who arrived at the ED with infants 6 months old or younger with complaints that didn’t necessitate immediate emergency care to take a short questionnaire on a computer tablet. This questionnaire included the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, a well-validated tool to screen for PPD, along with basic sociodemographic questions and queries about risk factors that other studies previously identified for PPD.
Just over half agreed to participate. When Dr. Jarvis and colleagues analyzed the results from these 209 mothers, they found that 27 percent scored positive for PPD, more than the average from previous estimates. Fourteen of those mothers reported having suicidal thoughts. Surprisingly, nearly half of participants reported that they’d never been screened previously for PPD, despite standing recommendations for routine screenings at mother and baby care visits, the research team writes in findings published online May 5, 2018, in Pediatric Emergency Care.
Based on the screening results, the researchers implemented a range of interventions. All mothers who participated in the study received an informational booklet from the March of Dimes on PPD. If mothers scored positive, they also received a local PPD resource handout and were offered a consultation with a social worker. Those with a strongly positive score were required to receive a social worker consultation and were given the option of “warm-line” support to PPD community partners, a facilitated connection to providers who offer individual or group therapy or home visits, or to a psychiatrist who might prescribe medication. Mothers with suicidal thoughts were assessed by a physician and assisted by crisis intervention services, if needed.
When the researchers followed up with mothers who screened positive one month later, an overwhelming majority said that screening in the ED was important and that the resources they were given had been key for finding help. Many commented that even the screening process seemed like a helpful intervention.
“Some of these women had no idea how common PPD was. They thought they were crazy and felt alone and were bad moms,” Dr. Jarvis says. “For someone to even ask about PPD made these women aware that this exists, and it’s something people care about.”
Many thanked her and colleagues for the follow-up call, she adds, saying that it felt good to be cared for and checked on weeks later. “It goes to show that putting support systems in place for these new mothers is very important,” she says.
Dr. Jarvis and ED colleagues are currently collaborating with social workers, neonatology and other Children’s National Health System care partners to start screening mothers in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and ED for PPD. They plan to compare results generated by this universal screening to those in their study. These findings will help researchers better understand the prevalence of PPD in mothers with higher triage acuity levels and how general rates of PPD for mothers in the ED and NICU compare with those generated in past studies based on well-child checks. Eventually, she says, they would like to study whether the interventions they prescribed affected the known consequences of PPD, such as breastfeeding, timely immunization rates and behavior outcomes.
“With appropriate care and resources,” Dr. Jarvis adds, “we’re hoping to improve the lives of these women and their families.”
In addition to Dr. Jarvis, the lead study author, Children’s co-authors include Kristen A. Breslin, M.D., M.P.H.; Gia M. Badolato, M.P.H.; James M. Chamberlain, M.D.; and Monika K. Goyal, M.D., MSCE, the study’s senior author.
Lenore Jarvis, M.D., an Emergency Medicine Specialist at Children’s National Health System, won Best Abstract in the Section of Emergency Medicine at the American Academy of Pediatrics 2016 National Conference. Monika Goyal, MD, MSCE, also an Emergency Medicine Specialist at Children’s, is senior author of the study.
The abstract, titled Postpartum Depression Screening in a Pediatric ED, explored the topic through an investigation of the prevalence of postpartum depression positive screens, factors associated with them, and the frequency of screenings and the impact they have.
The research findings may help with future efforts to support mothers with infants who use the emergency department.
Lanre Omojokun Falusi, M.D., F.A.A.P., a pediatrician at Children’s National Health System and Associate Medical Director for Municipal and Regional Affairs at Child Health Advocacy Institute (CHAI), will tell attendees of the American Academy of Pediatrics 2016 National Conference that “poverty really is a public health issue.”
For any child, and particularly children living in poverty, adverse experiences during childhood are linked to health conditions that can linger for much of their adult lives.
While pediatricians are challenged by high case loads, Dr. Falusi believes that there is a place within the doctor visit for a discussion about such social determinants of health. Team-based care provides an opening for such conversations.
In some cases, pediatricians may feel out of their element. “It’s a very natural feeling: The best interventions to alleviate poverty are not the issues that doctors are used to working on,” she says. On the other side of the continuum are clinicians who try to take a lion’s share of the load. “Many pediatricians trained in hospitals that are very work-focused, and even I still fight the urge of saying ‘I myself need to fix this. It’s my job to make their health better.’ ”
But social workers, who are trained in identifying such resources, and nurses are also integral members of the healthcare team. It would be equally natural for a referral to a food pantry or an application for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to come from these team members.
It’s a shift in mentality, refocusing on the patient’s broader needs that may impact health, rather than the narrow symptoms caused by those health concerns.
AAP 2016 presentation:
Saturday, October 22, 2016
Irene Chatoor, M.D., vice chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Children’s National Health System, specializes in helping children work through their food anxieties and encourages parents to set aside dedicated time for family meals. That’s expertise she will share with peers at the American Academy of Pediatrics 2016 National Conference.
“I also want to help pediatricians to differentiate between toddlers who ‘no-no-NO’ to the few foods they don’t like – which is OK – and children whose food selection is quite limited,” she says. “They need to be aware of red flags, like a child who spits out food, gags, or grimaces in response to certain foods or refuses to eat other foods that may look similar or that have the same texture as the aversive foods.”
Their limited may lead to nutritional problems, and also may have emotional consequences, according to a 2015 article published in Pediatrics for which Dr. Chatoor was senior author.
This makes parents increasingly anxious, and they often try all kinds of distractions to get their child to eat. Dr. Chatoor has described this feeding disorder as infantile anorexia. Interestingly, research has shown that families who eat together at regular times help their children to outgrow their feeding problems.
AAP 2016 presentations:
Saturday, October 22, 2016
• F1069- “Food Refusal: From Picky Eating to Feeding Disorders”
9:30 a.m. to 10:15 a.m.
Sunday, October 23, 2016
• F2012- “Food Refusal: From Picky Eating to Feeding Disorders”
7:30 a.m. to 8:15 a.m.
