Dear team,
This month, we are excited to celebrate Juneteenth, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the end of legal slavery in the United States. Please join us in recognizing and celebrating this day across UVA Health.
We’re also focusing on uniqueness & individuality. Oxford defines unique as “being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else” and we love this definition. You are the only one who has your life experiences, your own special skills, and your own distinct ideas. We as a team are stronger and more effective when your individuality and creativity are heard, seen, and recognized. Think about a bouquet or a tapestry – each flower and thread are great on their own, but together, they are remarkable! We are challenging all of you and ourselves as leaders to step out of our comfort zone, continue to be curious and learn new things, and most importantly, listen to and explore different perspectives.
We wish you a happy official start to summer (June 20)!
Thank you for all that you do,
Jim, Liz, Karin, Billy, Ann, Jennifer, Leigh & Jef
|
|
Children's Hospital Strategic Plan Updates
By Dr. Jim Nataro, Department of Pediatrics Chair
Learn more about updates, including refinement, execution path, and working groups.
|
|
|
COVID Corner
by Dr. Debbie-Ann Shirley, Division Head of Pediatric Infectious Disease
|
Learn more about the latest updates on epidemiology, variants, vaccines, and more.
|
|
|
Together We Make a Difference |
|
|
|
Theme of the Month:
Uniqueness/Individuality
|
|
Quotes of the Week
June 1: “The chances you take, the people you meet, the people you love, the faith you have. That's what going to define you.” ~ Denzel Washington
June 7: “The true miracle lies in our eagerness to allow, appreciate, and honor the uniqueness, and freedom of each sentient being to sing the song of their heart.” ~ Unknown
June 14: “Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.” ~ Stephen Covey
June 21: “A lot of different flowers make a bouquet.” ~ Islamic Proverb
June 28: “You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right.” ~ Rosa Parks
|
|
Mark Your Calendar
Professional Recognition & Health Awareness Days
-
Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month
- Men’s Health Month
- National Safety Month
- Helen Keller Deaf-Blind Awareness Week (June 27–July 3)
-
National Cancer Survivors Day (June 7)
- Family Health and Fitness Day (June 13)
- Nurse Assistants Day (June 17)
- Juneteenth (June 19)
- World Sickle Cell Day (June 19)
-
PTSD Awareness Day (June 27)
|
|
Check out the June calendar from Action for Happiness. This month is all about finding the joy in life, even when things are difficult. Practice training your brain to find joy.
|
|
|
Reflections & Expressions |
|
A memory
by Sana Syed, MD MSCR MSDS, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Death came
as it was meant to
I was the most
junior doctor
Standing outside the room
The attending standing next to me
Asked
Have you ever called it before?
Called what?
time of death
No
then it’s yours
will be your first
How?
Take your stethoscope
listen
then
speak out aloud
And give the time
I walked into the room
a necessary intruder
harbinger of news
they already knew
superfluous
yet not
I listened
for the first time
For sounds from a
human heart
that
had
stopped
beating
I looked at my watch
time of death
9:46pm
I said out aloud
And walked
out
of
the
room
|
|
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
|
|
School of Medicine Professional Development
Medical Education Grand Rounds: Achieving Equity in Assessment for Clinical Learners
Wednesday, June 2
12:00 – 1:00 pm
Certificate Program: Using Evaluation Data for Program Improvement
Wednesday, June 9
12:00 – 1:00 pm
Establishing your Personal Brand: Steps for Building a Successful Web Presence
Wednesday, June 16
4:00 – 5:00 pm
June Journal Club
Thursday, June 17
12:00 – 1:00 pm
|
|
Child Life Builds Relationships with Patients and Families |
|
Child life specialists are trained professionals who help children cope with the stress and uncertainty of illness, injury, disability, and hospitalization.
Child life specialists are child development experts who work to ensure that life remains as normal as possible for children in health care settings and other challenging environments. They promote effective coping through play, self-expression activities, and developmentally-appropriate medical preparation/support and education.
As advocates of family-centered care, child life specialists work in partnership with doctors, nurses, social workers and other members of the interdisciplinary team to meet the unique emotional, developmental, and cultural needs of each child and family.
Child life specialists focus on the psychosocial and developmental needs of children, collaborating with families and other health care providers to:
- Prepare children for medical procedures or treatment using language that children understand
- Introduce and implement coping strategies to help reduce anxiety and enhance cooperation with the health care team
- Provide support and distraction during medical procedures
- Offer opportunities for play and expressive activities to encourage normal development and a sense of FUN in spite of challenging circumstances
- Promote family-centered care by providing information, advocacy and support to families of pediatric patients
Our Child Life Team of specialists and assistants are committed to building therapeutic relationships with pediatric patients AND their families. In addition to all the work they do, they find time to help Patient Family Centered Care receive in-kind donations of all types.
The Child Life team is amazing in all they do! Not only are they trained professionals who help children cope with the stress and uncertainty of Illness, injury, disability, and hospitalization, they make UVA Children’s stand out with all that they do to help patients and families!
|
|
The Child Life team
(Not pictured: Bailey and Patti)
|
|
Graduation Balloons
for kids
|
|
|
One of the many areas where Child Life delivers their expertise |
|
Seat belt covers
for patients
|
|
Child Life distributed Mother’s Day bags provided by the Family Centered Care Committee |
|
It is with pleasure that we introduce a formal mechanism to refer patients to the University of Virginia’s Pediatric Aero Digestive Team (ADT).
Some are familiar with this team which provides a collaborative approach to pediatric patients with suspected aspiration, chronic cough and wheeze, recurrent croup or pneumonias, suspected EoE with pulmonary manifestations. The team involves the following Pediatric specialties: Gastroenterology, Pulmonology, Otolaryngology, Speech and Language Pathology, as well as Allergy and Immunology, and Radiology and Genetics as indicated.
We arrive at diagnoses as varied as laryngeal clefts, vascular anomalies (presenting as croup or dysphagia), occult, chronic pulmonary bacterial or viral infections.
The team can be accessed via an Epic Referral order panel titled “Pediatric Aerodigestive Clinic Referral Orders panel UVA”. When using this panel indicate you would like these patients to be seen in the Aerodigestive Clinic.
|
|
Coming Soon: 7th Floor Artwork |
|
Check out these artist renditions (concepts, not exact images) of the painting that will go on the doors at the entrance to units on the 7th floor In Children’s! We hope this work will be finished by the end of this month. We're excited for our teams, patients, and families to see this beautiful artwork come to life. |
|
Bone Marrow Transplant Playroom Planning Underway |
|
The Ishan Gala Foundation is sponsoring the soon-to-be Bone Marrow Transplant playroom. Discussions are underway about tables, chairs, bench seating, walls, lights, and more! Watch the newsletter for more updates on this exciting new playroom! |
|
Still Uncertain About Getting Vaccinated? Employee Health Has Launched a New Service Just for You |
|
Employee Health (EH) has created a new one-on-one service that makes a UVA Health expert available to speak with anyone who is hesitant to get vaccinated against COVID-19. EH asks everyone requesting this service to describe the type of person they would be most comfortable speaking with – gender, race/ethnicity, role at UVA Health, etc. Once this information is provided, EH will connect you with an expert who matches your description and can answer your question(s). Any and all questions will be addressed. To access this new service, call 434.924.2013 or email CovidVax@hscmail.mcc.virginia.edu.
|
|
Congratulations, Red Shoe Award Winners! |
|
About the award: The Red Shoes Award Program recognizes outstanding accomplishments and contributions to Family-Centered Care at UVA Health. The winners are determined by the units’ Hospital Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) scores, the survey used to measure patience experience.
Bush Bell, Veronica Brill, Deb Owens, Dr. Leigh Cantrell, Dr. Elisa Hampton, Dr. Ann Kellams, as well as others representing leadership from across the Medical Center, presented Women’s Services with the Red Shoe award for sustained patient experience scores.
From Dr. Chris Chisholm: "Our team does amazing work. I am not a person who uses the word amazing very often – I think it gets overused. In this circumstance however it is the exactly correct word. The team amazes me. They manage a high volume, high turnover (ALOS 2.3 days) population of patients with high incidence of medical, obstetrical and social comorbidities with the rare confluence of high quality of care and high patient experience ratings. Our recognitions include Newsweek Top Maternity Hospitals 2 consecutive years (top 1% of maternity services in the US), #1 rating nationally in Vizient for maternal mortality, Anthem QHIP, Blue Distinction and Leapfrog all highly rated. They are doing this while we absolutely reverse the national birth trend – births are down nationally by 7-10% in the wake of Covid and financial uncertainty, but UVA births are UP 8% over prior year."
From Felisha Tyree: "Senior leaders expressed their gratitude for our continued progress in meeting patients where they are at and soaring above their expectations. Given our current census, acuity and staffing need you all continue to shine! Coming into work and consistently giving 100% is intentional. This is truly a showcase of your love for each other, your profession and our patient population. I cannot express my gratitude for each and every one of you. I stand in awe of you!"
From Robin Longo: “What makes this award so deserving is that despite our staffing numbers, census and acuity, our teams continue to offer expert care to our patients and families and they all do it so seamlessly regardless of all the other external factors. This team has shown what it means to be a true professional in tough times and for that “hats off” to each and every person on the unit who made this possible. It is our front line team that does the heavy lifting. This could not have been obtained without input from every single team member (MDs, nursing, PCTs, HUCs, nutritional and environmental services) that work on the 8th floor. As leaders we are so inspired by you.”
|
|
Dr. Debbie-Ann Shirley Goes Viral! |
|
From Dr. Jim Nataro: "Our own Dr. Debbie-Ann Shirley, head of pediatric infectious diseases, has been an invaluable leader during the covid-19 pandemic. She has led the Covid Diagnostic Clinic and served as the source of authoritative voice on covid in kids. She recently responded to 7 questions regarding use of the covid vaccines in kids, and her reasonable and authoritative answers have been picked up by news outlets quite literally all over the country! This is great exposure for her, and also for us. Thanks, and congratulations Dr. Shirley!"
From Dr. Debbie-Ann Shirley: "It has been great to see how excited adolescents have been about getting their COVID vaccine, they have had really good insight into the significance of this event and want to do their part. I have such admiration for this young generation and the potential that they hold."
|
|
Thank You to Our Super Hero Nurses! |
|
Amber Dillon, NM PICU, and Sam Loya, ANM PICU delivering super hero gifts for the super hero nurses in the PICU for the kick off of Nurses week! |
|
Congrats on Moving up the Clinical Ladder! |
|
Jenny Kuzjak from Ambulatory Peds Surgery - promoted to a Clinician 3 and is starting a new role as the RN-Care Coordinator for Peds Surgery
Cristina Brown from NR peds - promoted to Clinician 3
Laura Bush from 4th floor BB - promoted to Clinician 3
Julie Hill from PICU - promoted to a Clinician 3
Megan Matthews from Acute Care Pediatrics - promoted to a Clinician 3
Mary Farrelly from NICU - promoted to a Clinician 4
Erin Golden from LC - promoted to a Clinician 4
|
|
Soho Book Deliveries Resume at UVA Children’s |
|
The Soho Center donates beautiful hard cover books to UVA Children’s. To date, over 350,000 books have been donated. When the Covid- 19 pandemic hit, the deliveries were put on hold.
We are pleased to announce that the Soho Center book donations have returned!
UVA Children’s Main Hospital Inpatient, NICU, and Mother Baby, the Battle Building, Northridge and Orange clinics received over 12,000 books over a two-day period on April 29 and 30th.
A huge thank you and pat on the back to everyone involved! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
|
|
Ever wonder what a pallet of books looks like? The UVA Facilities team helps receive Soho Books at UVA’s Main Hospital and the Battle Building. |
|
7 Acute Hiking for a Cure |
|
On Saturday, May 15, Lindsey Daugherty, Nina Hedrick, Jordan Meeks, and Melissa Redding, RNs on 7 Acute Pediatrics, hiked 21 miles to raise awareness for childhood cancer through CureSearch for Children's Cancer.
“We hiked in honor and in memory of some of our patients that we have worked with on the seventh floor,” says Daugherty. “There were 65 hikers, and all together, we raised over $243,000.”
Daugherty, Hedrick, Meeks, and Redding are still accepting donations on their team page, Hoos4ACure, which has raised almost $9,500 so far. The nurses are also collecting new and gently used men's, women's, and children's shoes for CureSearch. Donations can be dropped off in the 7 Central break room. The deadline to donate funds or shoes is Saturday, June 26. Contact Lindsey Daugherty with any questions at ld7kr@hscmail.mcc.virginia.edu.
Great job, and thank you for supporting the health of our community in such a meaningful way!
|
|
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!
WCH Communication and Culture Workgroup
The WCH Communication and Culture workgroup focuses on team-building, keeping us all in touch with the meaning of our work, giving us all common language and common goals, and helping to ensure that every member of our team, regardless of role, feels welcomed, included, respected, heard, and valued. We are always seeking new members, new ideas, and feedback!
Please help us spread the word
Know someone who would enjoy our newsletter? Please forward this email. Want to be added to the list to receive monthly updates? Please email us.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
