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President's Perspective
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By Robert Wittler, MD, FAAP
One of the responsibilities for the AAP chapter presidents and president-elects is participating in the AAP Annual Leadership Forum (ALF) which occurs yearly and the 2016 meeting recently took place March 10-13. I have talked about the ALF in previous newsletters and wanted to call attention to the Top 10 resolutions that passed at the 2016 ALF and were published in the AAP News:
Please take at a look at the webpage cited above to familiarize yourself with the list as the AAP Board of Directors will be reviewing them. There was a very lively discussion on the issue of pediatricians discharging families who refuse immunizations from their practice. One resolution had to do with being more explicit in supporting pediatricians who discharge those families and another resolution was a call to develop/update the AAP policy statement on personal belief exemptions for immunizations. The May issue of the AAP News will have additional coverage of the 2016 ALF.
This is my last President's Perspective for the KAAP newsletter as Dr. Jennifer Mellick will become the KAAP President on July 1, 2016. Needless to say, the KAAP will be in great hands with Dr. Mellick as the President and of course the continued leadership and work of all the KAAP staff. The greatest benefit of having served as the KAAP President was getting to know the KAAP staff better and witnessing the tremendous work that they do. It is no wonder that the KAAP won the Outstanding Chapter Award in 2015 for medium sized chapters. Dr. Mellick is an energetic leader who has already contributed greatly to the KAAP. I also want to congratulate Dr. Lisa Gilmer for her election as the new President-elect. Drs. Mellick and Gilmer will be a great team.
In addition to my heartfelt thanks to all the KAAP staff, I do want to thank the pediatricians and all those health care providers who help care for the children of Kansas. Your work does not get a great deal of attention or fanfare, but as a father and fellow pediatrician it is tremendously appreciated and respected. My plea is that you will all either be involved in or supportive of the great work that the KAAP is doing.
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| Issues & Commentary |
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Chapter Champion for Asthma and Food Allergy Report
By Kirsten Evans, MD, FAAP
In the fall, I attended the national meeting Chapter Champions for Asthma and Food Allergy in Chicago. The conference was attended by representatives from each state chapter. The majority were allergists from tertiary care centers, but there were a handful of general pediatricians. The focus of this year's meeting was food allergies, with the intention of educating the attendees who would then develop plans to implement statewide education in their own locales.
The speakers discussed several areas of interest. The conference opened with a long discussion of the definition of food allergy, an IgE mediated event resulting in skin, respiratory, and gastrointestinal manifestations. This was sharply contrasted to food intolerances, such as lactose intolerance, and adverse food events, such as celiac disease. The speakers discussed the need to educate both providers and parents on the differences, and to advocate for cautious and convincing diagnosis of food allergy. Along those lines, they discouraged primary care providers from obtaining any kind of "food panels" or serum blood testing as diagnostic of allergies, as these are difficult to interpret and lead to an abundance of over diagnosis of food allergies, unnecessarily causing diet restrictions and anxiety to patients and their parents. Only specific testing for a particular suspected food should be undertaken, and this by an allergist.
Another area of discussion was communication among health care providers, parents, and child care providers and teachers regarding those patients with true food allergies. The AAAAI has developed an action plan, similar to the asthma action plan, for treatment of a severely allergic child who experiences exposure to the allergen.
This plan should be given to everyone involved in the child's care, and everyone involved should be taught how to administer needed medication. As a corollary, speakers advocated for the inclusion of epinephrine at schools, not for a particular child, but for any child who might experience anaphylaxis, as a significant number of children affected are experiencing their first reaction. This raised numerous questions about cost, safety, and administering person, which would need to be worked out locally. Mylan, the company which makes EpiPen, offers free EpiPens to schools which enroll with the company, but some districts have experienced difficulties actually obtaining the pens. The website with information and instructions is
http://www.epipen4schools.com.
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| Dr. Sandra Hassink, MD, FAAP Visits Spring CME and KU Pediatrics |
By Lisa Gilmer, MD, FAAP,
Pediatric Residency Program Director
The 2016 KAAP's Spring CME Meeting in April provided attendees with an inspirational dose of the power of pediatricians administered by Dr. Sandra Hassink, the AAP Immediate Past President and Medical Director of the AAP Institute for Healthy Childhood Weight. Through her Grand Rounds and KAAP meeting presentations, Dr. Hassink delivered a message focused on the responsibility we all have to provide the foundations of health for all children.
Every child should have sound and appropriate nutrition, a stable and responsive environment of relationships, and safe and supportive, physical, chemical and build environments yet the threats to these foundations are numerous. Food insecurity affects 21% of children aged 6-10 years at the same time pediatric obesity rates have climbed to 20-30% in many states. Add to that the fact that nearly half of all children have experienced toxic stress through one or more adverse childhood events and you have to wonder is there anything we can do to make a difference? The answer of course is YES!
Dr. Hassink stressed the importance of leveraging the power of the pediatrician through the twenty encounters we have with children and their families over the first five years of a child's life. To maximize this impact, she challenged us to reclaim our patient encounters as the place where our most important work occurs, where we build relationships, and where what we say matters. She encouraged us to bring mindfulness to our clinical practices as a means to meeting this task. To help get us started, Dr. Hassink also provided a wealth of practical tips and strategies to help us be genuinely present with each child, each family, each visit. Those of us fortunate to hear Dr. Sandra Hassink speak now appreciate how that presence can help us focus our pediatric power on the health and well-being of all children.
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| Kansas Breastfeeding Friendly Practice Designation |
Pediatricians are in a position to offer support and encouragement that can lead to successful breastfeeding. The Kansas Chapter, American Academy of Pediatrics (KAAP) in collaboration with the Kansas Breastfeeding Coalition (KBC) has created the Kansas Breastfeeding Friendly Practice Designation that can be earned by physician practices in Kansas.
Several practices have already taken advantage of the free CME education and are earning their designation. The following are Kansas Breastfeeding Friendly Practices:
- Pediatric Partners, PA - Overland Park
- Heartland Primary Care - Lenexa
- University of Kansas Department of Family Medicine - Kansas City
For information on how your practice can become breastfeeding friendly, contact Mel Hudelson at
mel.hudelson@kansasaap.org or (913) 530-6265.
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| KPF Update |
The Kansas Kids Fund Supports Child Health
KAAP has a long history of creating and implementing programs and initiatives that improve child health in Kansas. The Kansas Kids Fund was created to be a source of support for these important initiatives as funding gets cut for children's programming across the state.
Now is the time to stand up for Kansas kids and make sure they are not forgotten. The budget woes in Kansas will not end any time soon, but we can work together to create funding that is dedicated to the health of our children.
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| Join Us at the Fall CME Meeting in Wichita! |
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KAAP 2016 Fall CME Meeting
"Progress In Pediatrics" (PIP)
September 15-16, 2016
Hotel at Old Town
Wichita, Kansas
Mark your calendars!
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