RDASH 2008 Pictures

RDASH 2008 Organizers

Dr. Katie Zuckerman greeting RDASH attendee
Dr. Katie Brigham

Drs. Anna Rosenquist (left) and Alenka Zeman
(right) welcome the RDASH attendees and
explain the schedule of events

RDASH was attended by nearly 70
residents and fellows

Practice 101: Prearing to Meet the Legislators

Meeting with Donna, a staffer for Senator
Petrucelli

School Nutrition Bill

One of the issues we are focusing on at this year’s Day at the State House is childhood obesity. Every medical student has seen the infamous slides documenting the alarming rise in adult obesity rates over the past few decades (http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/trend/maps/), but it wasn’t until I became a resident and started following patients in my own pediatric clinic that I realized the extent of the effect of the environment on childhood obesity. At my clinic in Chelsea, I have seen countless recent immigrants from Central and Southern America become overweight or obese within a few months of arriving in this country. These are not children that are undernourished in when they arrive-they start out around the 50th percentile and proceed to have nearly vertical weight-for-age growth curves. The abundance of cheap, often unhealthy food in this country, while a sign of our prosperity, also contributes to this epidemic of obesity.

One important venue where we can intervene in this epidemic is the school system. We need to educate children about nutrition and set a good example by offering them healthy food choices while they are in school. The Massachusetts state legislature is now considering a school nutrition bill, H.4376. This bill will ensure that food choices in school cafeterias and vending machines are consistent with current, evidence based guidelines for nutrition.

I am excited to have the opportunity to speak to legislators about this bill, because I believe it will have a lasting, positive impact on the children in my clinic, and across the state!

-Emily Kung, MD

Mental Health Bill

I’m one of the pediatric residents at Mass General working on the mental health bill currently winding its way through the MA legislature. This bill aims to really highlight and hopefully help fix a key problem in our society – the mental health of our young.

Recently it seems that our pediatric medical wards have been filled with young children and teenagers awaiting placement in a mental health facility. It fills hospital beds needed by other patients and more importantly delays their own treatment since all we essentially do is babysit them after they’ve been medically cleared.

This bill will hopefully streamline services, increase insurance coverage, and really make someone accountable for making mental health services available for our young. I’m very excited that we’re supporting it and hope that it will pass this year. What do you guys think?

Thanks! Robin

RSVP for RDASH2008!

Hi, my name is Miranda Ip, and I’m a PGY1 at MassGeneral Hospital for Children.  I’ve been keeping tally on the number of folks who have RSVP’d for our April 8th event at the State House, and the count today is 73, which is fantastic!

While the deadline to RSVP was last week, if you’re just finding out from your residency program/scheduling-powers-that-be that you might have some free time, please let us know so that we can make room for you at our event!

Pediatric Residents Day at the State House

Here at the MassGeneral Hospital for Children, we are all getting excited about the upcoming event “Residents’ Day at the State House”.  It is amazing that this event is already in it’s third year!  The planning for the first event in 2006 seems so fresh in our minds, and yet it also feels as if it has always been an MGHfC flagship event, as it so epitomizes the ethos of our department.

In 2005 and 2006 an energetic and motivated group of pediatric residents got together in their “spare” time (when not working every fourth night overnight and 12 hour days in between) and designed this advocacy event from the ground up.  A few of us on the faculty lent support, but there was never a  moment when this wasn’t 100% a resident initiated and driven event.  That fact is what makes this such a very special project.

Three years in, we again anticipate a landmark event.  Pediatric residents and fellows from all 5 of the Massachusetts pediatric residency programs (MGH, Tufts, UMass, Baystate and Boston Combined) will congregate at the State House on April 8th.  They will spend the morning with amazing lifelong child advocates who will inspire while giving them practical skills for lobbying on behalf of children.  After a networking lunch (both breakfast and lunch are free for all participants thanks to the fundraising by the residents and the generosity of some of the participating residency programs and matching funds from the Mass Chapter of the AAP), all of the participants will head off to pre-scheduled meetings with their state representatives.  The residents will lobby on issues such as the booster seat law–Massachusetts woefully lags most of the nation by not having a law on the books enforcing the AAP and National Highway and Transportation Safety Administration’s recommendation for booster seats for children who are too big for toddler carseats (typically children who weigh more than 40 lbs but are shorter than the 4 ft 9 in height needed to adequately utilize the shoulder safety belt).  The effect of 20 mins of a physician’s time in the office of a legislator describing the children he or she has seen in the PICU after unrestrained MVAs has the chance to really make a difference in passing critical legislation such as this.

Every day I am proud to be a part of the MGHfC community and I relish my role within the pediatric residency.  It is this event, however, which makes me most proud of the residents we train.  Watching these young pediatricians turn months of planning and organizing into a phenomenal program of advocacy education overwhelms me with pride.  We are training an amazing group of dedicated, energetic pediatricians who not only will take excellent care of the children in their offices and hospitals, but will take the extra steps necessary to advocate for children’s health and well being on all levels.   I’m thankful to have the opportunity to work with them.

Shannon Scott-Vernaglia, MD

Associate Residency Director