August 2008
This edition:
Life Lives in the NICU
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When Ashley and Jon Morrill first heard their newborn's cry, he "sounded like a kitten," says Ashley.
Born two months early, his lungs were not yet fully developed.
The morning after his birth, little Brody had a lot of trouble breathing. He was hand-ventilated, recalls his mom, and rushed to the NICU.
"That's where my journey began," says Ashley.
Within 24 hours of his birth, Brody developed an E-coli infection and meningitis. He was in the NICU for three weeks.
[read more]
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Dear faculty, Children's Hospital staff and other friends,
As I was talking to Dr. Bowman and Dr. Dobson this past week, it dawned on me that the power of simulation training will allow us to revolutionize "humane learning." Of course, "humane learning" is not a term that is prevalent, but the idea of being able to learn how to do life saving, but extremely painful procedures on simulation machines is extremely appealing. I remember the first time, I as a medical student was asked to go and draw blood from a small infant with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia. These children had a marked amount of dehydration and the dryness made it difficult. I knew that the answers the blood would bring would help to save this child's life, but the blood drawing that could only be accomplished after shaving the head of a very uncomfortable and writhing infant was a pain that should not have been inflicted by a novice.
[read more]
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Team Building and Leadership
What does team building and leadership really mean and how do they affect the Children's Hospital and our patients? In June, I discussed how important a health care team was to the Children's Heart Program achieving a top national ranking in US News and World Report. This month I want to discuss two other teams in the Children's Hospital that have had an important impact.
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Heart and Vascular Get High Scores
Each year children's hospitals across the country enter data in national surveys where various programs and services are ranked. There are two surveys that we concentrate on with US News and World Report and Parent/Child Magazine. This past year the US News and World Report changed their survey to have more focus on data and worked with NACHRI to provide a more objective survey. In the past, the entire ranking was based on a fairly biased technique of using reputation as a score.
[read more]
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Do dietary supplements help treat autism?
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For parents of kids diagnosed with autism, the use of dietary supplements is a hot topic.
"We know vitamins and supplements are popular in terms of autism treatments, but we're not sure if they actually work," says Laura Arnstein Carpenter, PhD. "Parents and providers want to know which treatments are empirically supported. Behavioral treatment has empirical support, but there has been limited evaluation of these other types of bio medical treatments."
Supplements have been widely marketed as valid treatments for autism, she says, but few have undergone rigorous empirical inspection.
Dr. Carpenter is about to change that. The assistant professor of Pediatrics at MUSC recently won a healthy grant to evaluate a dietary supplement intervention for autism.
[read more]
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Asthma (Part 1 of 2)
"Asthma," says Dr. Ron Teufel, Pediatric Hospitalist and Assistant Professor of Medicine at MUSC, "is one of the most common chronic conditions in children." And the good news is that there has been strong funding for research, resulting "in very good evidence for how to treat asthma, and also guidelines by expert organizations."
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School Lunches - No More Pop Tarts!
The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is a federally assisted meal program operating in public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions. It provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to children each school day. The program was established under the National School Lunch Act, signed by President Harry Truman in 1946. In 2007, 30,508,470 children participated in the U.S. In South Carolina, we served 80,891,957 lunches to 496,534 children.
[read more]
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A special thanks to the following individuals for their efforts in putting together Kids Connection each month.
Editor-in-Chief: Bernard L. Maria, MD/MBA
Editorial Assistant: Jennifer Cherock, Trio Solutions, Inc.
Publishers: Brian Dadin, Roxanne Hicks, Trio Solutions, Inc.
Feature Writer: Mary Sue Lawrence
Contributing Writers:
Lyndon Key,
Bernard Maria,
Philip Saul,
John Sanders,
Laura Cousineau
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