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September 2005 This edition: Letter From Our Chair Feature Story Message From Our Medical Director Update From Our Administrator Children's Research Institute News Mental Health News Brief Upcoming Events Letter From Our Chair L. Lyndon Key, MD Professor and Chairman Department of Pediatrics Dear Faculty and Friends: Those of you who attended our grand rounds have heard about the exciting things that happened this past year. We have had great moments and we have experienced the mixed emotions associated with the departure of colleagues. Two noteworthy individuals deserve mention. We send Dr. Val Panzarino our thanks for all of the excitement she instilled in our academic program. Val had the wonderful ability to excite students like no other. This is easily demonstrated by the increase of students training in pediatrics as well as the number of residents seeking fellowships in nephrology. Similarly, it was also sad to see Ms. Debbie Blevins leave the department to explore a career in real estate sales. Her invested service greatly enhanced the development of our residency program. She will be missed. With good-byes come hellos and this year we welcome many new faces. I am very excited about our new group of residents and I anticipate they will exceed expectations based on our strong program. Click here to meet our residents. The success of most programs is the integration or partnership of two parties. In our case, the potential of a high caliber resident would not be realized without a caring and knowledgeable faculty. Our faculty continues to impress with innovative ways to redevelop our program and test new models of practice. This vibrancy retains and attracts. Click here to meet our new faculty recruits. Certainly, with this wonderful issue of our newsletter featuring neuroscience, it would be appropriate to mention the arrival of Dr. Tuitte with pediatric neurosurgery. We anxiously look forward to his contribution and we welcome him with great excitement. Lastly, we are about to embark on a faculty summit to help plan the continued development of our pediatric programs. We sense a movement toward greatness. We are aware our faculty and staff are the platform for real success. We intend to set a course to assure an opportunity for everyone to achieve not only their potential, but more. I look forward to this academic year and working with each of you. Sincerely, L. Lyndon Key, MD Chair, Department of Pediatrics Feature Story Gerald Tuite, MD Operating on children isn't quite the same as operating on adults, and that philosophy couldn't be more true than in the specialty of pediatric neurosurgery. According to Sunil Patel, MD, clinical chair of the Department of Neurosciences, there are challenges to working with the delicate life of a small child. "When you operate on children, you deal with a smaller anatomy that requires a certain level of delicacy that you don't necessarily need with adults," he says. "And children can't always tell us where it hurts or what's wrong. Fortunately, diagnostic tools have improved during the last few decades and we can turn to CT scans and MRIs to help us pinpoint a problem." [read more] Message From Our Medical Director J. Philip Saul, MD Medical Director Director, Pediatric Cardiology This month the level of service in the Children's Hospital is boosted by two outstanding events. The first, the arrival of our new dedicated pediatric neurosurgeon, Dr. Gerald Tuite, coincides perfectly with the featured specialty of this newsletter. We deeply appreciated the role Dr. Patel, chairman of neurosurgery, has played as interim pediatric neurosurgeon, but I know that Dr. Patel, as well as our patients, faculty and staff, are all delighted to welcome a neurosurgeon trained in and dedicated to the care of children. For multiple reasons, there is a national shortage of all pediatric surgical sub-specialists. This makes the addition of Dr. Tuite to our hospital even more invaluable. The second event is the opening of our dedicated 12-bed pediatric cardiac intensive care unit (PCICU). This unit completes our state-of-the-art facilities for the care of children with heart disease and provides much needed ICU beds for all pediatric patients. Both the arrival of Dr. Tuite and the opening of our PCICU further enhance our ability to deliver the best possible care to the children of the Lowcountry and the entire state of South Carolina. Update From Our Administrator John Sanders, MHA Administrator MUSC Children's Hospital Busy Times for Children's Hospital This month we see many exciting things happening around our Children's Hospital. The new, 12-bed PCICU has opened and now is providing wonderful care for the children. The soon-to-be-renovated old unit, which will provide support space, now houses the PICU while that unit undergoes a face lift. That renovation, which includes new flooring and a new nurse's station, should be complete by the end of this month. I am happy to report that work has also begun on the much-awaited flooring project for the inpatient units. A crew is now installing new floors in the main corridor on the seventh floor in an ongoing process which will continue for the next few months. While all of these activities are underway, we are also helping victims of Hurricane Katrina. The Children's Hospital and the entire MUSC Medical Center, along with 14 other centers designated around the country, are receiving patients from the stricken areas. We are honored to be able to help those in need. Children's Research Institute News Bernard L. Maria, MD, MBA Executive Director Darby Children's Research Inst. Inderjit Singh, PhD Scientific Director Darby Children's Research Inst. The Children's Research Institute (CRI) along with the MUSC Department of Neurosciences is proud to announce the arrival of our most recent recruit, Dr. Prakash Kara, an outstanding developmental and systems neuroscientist from Harvard Medical School. Dr. Kara has published seminal papers in outstanding journals including Nature, Science, Neuron, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Journal of Neuroscience. The CRI already has considerable depth and breadth in pediatric neuroscience, including stellar programs in developmental neurological disorders (Dr. Singh); pediatric neuropsychiatry (Drs. Kalivas and Rammamorthy) and neuro-oncology (Dr. Maria). As an integrative neuroscientist with expertise in new in vivo function brain imaging and electrophysiological techniques, Dr. Kara complements these disciplines. By bringing together such a diverse group of neuroscience experts, the CRI aims to comprehensively address pediatric brain health with every available basic science tool. Our goal is to understand childhood disease of the brain, from the molecular and cellular mechanisms through to a systems level analysis with cutting-edge technology. The unique interdisciplinary structure of the Children's Research Institute, together with the proven leadership of the Institute directors and Dept of Neuroscience Chairs, and the collegiality of the neuroscience faculty is what convinced Dr. Kara to come to MUSC. [read more] Mental Health Resource News Brief Psychological Impact of Hurricane Katrina The destructive nature of Hurricane Katrina has caused extensive loss and devastation and has had an enormous economic impact on the entire nation. Health care professionals, parents and teachers are again faced with the difficult challenge of discussing natural disasters. It's important to allow opportunities for children to talk about these events. [read more] Upcoming Events Thirteenth Anuual Isle of Palms Connector Run and Walk for the Child Saturday, Oct. 1, 2005 8 a.m. Sponsored by the Exchange Clubs of Mt. Pleasant and Isle of Palms, MUSC Children's Hospital, Town of Mt. Pleasant and City of Isle of Palms. 100 percent of the net proceeds from this event support the local prevention of child abuse and other child-related programs. For more information, please visit www.iopconnectorrun.com. A special thanks to the following individuals for their efforts in putting together Kids Connection each month. Managing Editors: Bernard L. Maria, MD, MBA Publisher: Jennifer Cherock (Trio Solutions Inc.) and Jessica Munday (Trio Solutions Inc.) Web design: Brian Dadin (Trio Solutions Inc.) Contributing Writers: Lyndon Key, MD; Bernard Maria, MD; Inderjit Singh, PhD; John Sanders; Philip Saul, MD; Eve Spratt, MD; Michelle Macias, MD; Parakash Kara, PhD; Becky Ceraul (Trio Solutions Inc.)

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