Dear team,
We made it through January! We know that wasn’t the easiest start to the new year with blizzards and Omicron surges and we are here to support you.
This month, we are focusing on the love of co-workers and teams. We celebrate Valentine’s Day, a day to be mindful of love. Love looks different to everyone, but we are especially thankful for the connection and commitment that we share as a team. Love can be mutual respect between leaders and team members. It can be expressed by showing empathy to a co-worker. It can be the heart-warming feeling you get caring for a patient.
We ask that you share with your co-worker and teams what they mean to you. Let’s take the time to practice small acts of kindness – check in on a colleague to see how they are doing, offer to help, send a thank you card, or express your gratitude.
- Learn about noteworthy black figures and their contributions
- Donate to charities that support anti-racism equity and equality
- Purchase, read, and share books by black authors
- Participate in online events
Sending our love and gratitude to you,
Jim, Liz, Karin, Billy, Ann, Jennifer, Leigh & Pete
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Wisdom & Wellbeing Program |
Let us know how you are doing and how work is going for you! Please complete your Quick Check now by scanning the QR code.
Learn more about this health system-wide effort:
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Learn more about the latest updates on epidemiology, variants, vaccines, and more.
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Together We Make a Difference |
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Theme of the Month:
Love of Co-Workers & Team
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Quotes of the Week
February 7: "A group becomes a team when each member is sure enough of himself and his contribution to praise the skills of others."~ Norman Shidle
February 14: "Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life."~ Amy Poehler
February 21: "Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean."~ Ryunosuke Satoro
February 28: "A good life depends on the strength of our relationships with family, friends, neighbors, colleagues and strangers."~ David Lammy
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Mark Your Calendar
Professional Recognition & Health Awareness Days
- National Black History Month
- International Prenatal Infection Prevention Month
- African Heritage and Health Week (February 1-7)
- National Play Therapy Week (February 6-12)
- National Women’s Physician Day (February 3)
- Resident Appreciation Day (February 25)
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Chinese New Year, also known as Lunar New Year or Spring Festival, was February 1, starting a year of the Tiger. |
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Check out the February calendar from Action for Happiness. This month, we're focusing on reaching out to connect with others and doing our best to be a good friend. Our acts of kindness and connection ripple out and impact so many more people than we realize - and they also boost our own happy hormones, too!
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Video of the Month
Anyone else feel like this is the new anthem of healthcare workers?
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Reflections & Expressions |
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Quilting
by Lynn McDaniel, MD, Director of Pediatric Hospital Medicine, Co-Medical Director of Acute Pediatrics | UVA Children’s Hospital
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I have a quilt, now over 65 years old, that was pieced and quilted by my mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. It is a true scrap quilt, made with bits of fabric left from making clothes, aprons, and sundries. It is not fancy or intricate, but a reflection of the lives they lived on the “Mill Hill”, in housing owned by the textile mill where they all worked. My grandfather had made a large quilting frame that hung from the ceiling in the upstairs room, and women from the neighborhood would bring their quilt tops, and together they would quilt and socialize as the Abney Mill Quilting Circle. I am so fortunate to have one of the quilts they made, and a photo that was taken in the 1950’s by the local paper to highlight the group, which captures my grandmother and great grandmother.
The first quilt I made was started in my last year of residency. A complete novice, I would call my mother for advice. I made crib quilts for each of my sons, then a few for nieces and friends. Then as life goes, I became busy with 3 active boys, and my sewing machine was used mostly for making Halloween costumes. When the pandemic hit, I and thousands of others pulled out dusty sewing machines to sew a few masks. It was then that I realized how much I missed sewing. I stitched up a baby quilt for a friend and started another, then another.
Since then, my wonderful husband gifted me a new sewing machine and indulged me as I took over a bedroom left vacant by children leaving the nest. He even built me a design wall so I can piece together scraps of fabric together to tell a story.
I really am just an advanced beginner quilter. I am very familiar with a seam ripper, where mistakes can be undone, and stitched back right again. So often in medicine, that is not easy to do. Covered in bits of thread and cloth, with a podcast or an audible book playing in the background, I can piece and stitch to my heart’s content. I fuss with the small pieces to get the seems to all line up, and wrestle a large quilt “sandwich” of the pieced top, battling and backing into the throat of the sewing machine, so I can “quilt” them together.
There is so much more I can learn about the craft, and different skills to master, and no end to what one can create. It is satisfying to see what I can make. But my greatest joy is creating something special and giving it away.
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Abney Mill Quilting Circle. 1950s South Carolina |
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My niece's Butterfly Quilt |
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Several quilts in progress |
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The goal of Expressions & Reflections is to help us reconnect with our purpose in medicine. We want to provide a space for sharing lessons learned within our Children's Hospital. Topics could include, but are not limited to: wellness, racism, violence, bias, resiliency, advocacy, burnout, equality, LGBTTQQIAAP, kindness, mistreatment, mentorship, peer support, or any fascinating, sad, happy, brave, complex, or inspiring experiences. This feature can be prose (with a limit of 500 words), poetry or art. Please submit to Dr. Joanne Mendoza jm7zg@virginia.edu
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Help Support the UVA Children's Food Pantry! |
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A group of UVA pediatric residents and faculty will be running and walking the Charlottesville 10 miler on March 26th to raise money for the UVA Children’s Food Pantry in the Battle Building.
UVA Children’s has partnered with Charlottesville’s Local Food Hub to develop an on-site food pantry in the Battle Building to put non-perishable food in hands when children come for their appointments. The pantry is open to any patient in need, visiting any clinic.
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You can help by participating, making a direct donation, or buying one of our long sleeve tech tees. All donations and profits will go directly to UVA's rapidly growing food pantry, which currently serves hundreds of families in the Charlottesville area.
Please place your shirt order by Friday, February 18th. The shirts will be $30 each and will be unisex. You can place your order, with your shirt size, through venmo: @uvachildrensfoodbank
Make your donation today via venmo: @uvachildrensfoodbank
We hope to see you out on the course, as a participant or volunteer!
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LilyPads: The House on the Corner |
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LilyPads has a newly remodeled duplex to support our patients and families with long stays. Check out these beautiful professional photos.
LilyPads provides no-cost, short-term housing in volunteer host homes for families and friends of pediatric patients undergoing medical care at the University of Virginia or other medical facilities in Charlottesville, Virginia.
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A Memoir of Motherhood, Genetics, and Facing the Unknown |
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A mother of one of our pediatric genetics patients wrote a book titled “This Boy We Made: A Memoir of Motherhood, Genetics, and Facing the Unknown”. The author is Taylor Harris and She is a first-time published author. Please consider ordering the book to support her and also read about an incredible story. Also, as a bonus, some of our very own team members are characters in the book!
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42nd McLemore Birdsong Pediatric Conference |
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Date: Friday-Sunday, March 11-13
Details: Join us LIVE at the Omni Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, VA or VIRTUAL
Registration is OPEN!
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4th Annual Betsy and Stuart Houston Lecture |
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Date: Thursday, April 14
Time: 4:00 – 5:00pm
Location: Virtual event
Speaker: Jeffrey I. Gordon, MD, Dr. Robert J. Glaser Distinguished University Professor of Pathology, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
Topic: Development of microbiota-directed complementary foods for treatment of childhood undernutrition
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34th Annual Research Symposium & Research Trainee Competition |
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Research Day
Date: Thursday, May 26
Time: 8:00 AM - 2:30 PM
The 34th Annual Research Symposium
Presentations, awards, and a featured speaker! Participants will display poster presentations summarizing their work, followed by the opportunity for lively discussion with faculty and audience members.
Tenth Annual Research Trainee Competition
Date: Friday, May 13th
Time: 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
The Research Trainee Competition features Platform Presentations by residents, medical fellows, medical students, graduate students, and undergraduates. Trainees of any member of the Dept. of Pediatrics or associated with the CHRC are encouraged to participate. Top presentations from the Trainee Competition will be selected for oral presentation at the Annual “Research Day” Symposium. Please note in your submission email whether you will be available to participate in Research Day as well.
Abstract Submission Guidelines
All abstracts due: Friday, April 15
Details: Abstracts should focus on recent research that has not yet been published in manuscript form. Abstracts submitted for presentation at other scientific meetings within the last year are welcome, but should be updated to reflect the current status of your research.
• A brief summary of your research is required following your abstract. The summary should consist of 3 bullets titled: Objective, Conclusions and Implications for Children.
• IMPORTANT: For Trainee Competition submissions, one concept figure should be included above these bullets (Include only one concept figure and no additional figures).
• Please acknowledge the sources of funding for your research beneath your abstract, especially funding from the UVA Children’s Hospital Abstract Format guidelines:
• Margins: (top, bottom, left and right) should be one inch all around. Font: Arial 12 pt.
• For Research Day: the abstract and summary are limited to one page.
• If Research Day is held in person (not Zoom), printed posters can be no larger than 4 ft. X 4 ft.
• All submissions will be bound into the Program “Book” and distributed. Any submission that is too long will be edited to meet the guidelines.
• For the Trainee Competition submissions, maximum length is 2 pages; include one concept figure on page 2.
• Name the file as LAST NAME FIRST NAME SYM 2022. Example: PalmerJoanneSym 2022
• Please indicate whether you are a resident, fellow, student or faculty
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2nd Annual Children's Hospital Quality Improvement/Patient Safety Project Showcase |
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Date: Tuesday, May 31
Time: 11:30am - 1:30pm
More information: Please join us for the second annual quality improvement/patient safety showcase, highlighting outcomes improvement work done by nurses, residents, fellows, faculty, and other children’s hospital staff. Teams will present works in progress or completed projects aimed at improving effective, coordinated, collaborative, evidence-based, and patient- and family-centered care for children’s hospital patients.
Abstract deadline: May 2. Reviewers will select teams for oral platform as well as poster presentations. Projects that have been submitted to other conferences are welcome to re-use already submitted materials.
Contact: Please submit your abstract to Elisa Hampton ehampton@virginia.edu and contact her, Dr. Joanne Mendoza, or Dr. Jon Swanson with any questions.
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Thank you to five wonderful volunteers (one UVA student volunteer, not pictured) who helped pack 1,500 children’s books into 300 book bags for the Books at Birth-Yes! Program. Books are generously donated through the SOHO Foundation and go home with mother’s who discharge with newborns. |
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A sweet note left for our Child Life team in the playroom. Just a reminder to us all that play really does have therapeutic and healing properties! |
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- Brooke Arnold NICU RN advanced to Clin IV on the Clinical Ladder
- Emily Foltz graduated with her MSN - Pediatric Acute Care Nurse Practitioner
- Daisy Nominees: Taylor Brown, Kathleen Battle, Gabrielle Miller, and McKay Schmitt
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Maternal Fetal: Every nurse, doctor, and tech my husband and I have come in contact with we absolutely love! The staff is kind, informative and incredibly supportive.
Neurosurg Peds: Nurse was very patient with us and was extremely helpful and empathetic when I got news of something unexpected for my child.
Dev Peds: Stephanie McNerny's approach has always been wonderful, a combination of both empathy and one of education, too. She takes time to listen and hear what both Mariah and we as her parents has to say and then takes her time validating while providing some helpful explanations and tips.
7 West: I really appreciate the excellent care my baby received by all the doctors and nurses there.
NICU: Elizabeth in the NICU offered exceptional care for Jack. We are thankful.
Northridge University Physicians for Women: Dr. Gilmore was great!! Very knowledgeable and thorough! I felt very at ease and comfortable with her. She answered all my questions and made the visit very enjoyable! Thankful to have providers like her!
7 Central: Danielle & Colin were amazing nurses on 7 Central!
Northridge Pediatrics: Dr. Quillian is hands down the best pediatrician in town! We love her and appreciate all of her compassionate care to our kids!!
Peds Genetics: The time allotted for out appointment was great. We were not rushed and the doctor and genetic counselor were very kind.
Peds Gastro: Everything went very smoothly including X-ray and labs. Physician was prompt and very thorough. Explained everything well. Very pleasant experience.
Ortho Peds: Dr. Feiner was fantastic - she is excellent with children and made my son feel very comfortable with his visit. She is most definitely in the right place working in pediatric care as many doctors are not able to facilitate such a positive connection with the child during a visit. My son enjoyed himself and I could tell felt comfortable - I was very grateful for this experience.
Peds Pulm: Dr. Teague provides excellent care for our son and we're grateful to him.
Teen & Young Adult Center: Dr Louis Jacques shows that she cares about my child's health. She explains treatment plans and health information very well.
Labor & Delivery: Meredith in Labor & Delivery is absolutely AMAZING. If I could request a specific nurse when I give birth, it would be her. She's great!
UVPC OB-GYN: Stellar care from all members of the team.
8 North OB: My midwife Susan was absolutely amazing. I loved having her deliver my sweet baby girl. I would definitely recommend her to friends and family. These woman have big respect for all their mommies. I loved my stay and I will be coming back to birth my future child.
8 Central OB: Amazing birthing experience. All the staff was friendly and helpful.
Peds Allergy: They are always top of the line and the best.
Peds Endo: The nurses are always compassionate toward our child when checking her in at the beginning of the appointment.
Peds Urology: The communication between urology and radiology to get her through quickly so I could get to her brother was amazing and much appreciated.
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Have a story idea? Let us know!
Working on an exciting new project? Want to spread the word about your clinic? Know a team member that should be recognized? We can help!
Womens and Childrens Wisdom and Wellbeing
The Communication and Culture workgroup is evolving into the Wisdom and Wellbeing Steering Committee and Peer Representatives. In alignment with UVA Health, we are expanding our efforts to include not only team building and resilience, but also to stress first aid, peer support, and identification and removal of unnecessary stressors in the clinical work environment. Please let us know if you would like to get involved in the is important work!
Please help us spread the word
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Monthly Matters newsletter archive
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