Once again, it has been am extremely busy month at UNC Children’s! The hospital has been full, especially the NICU and PICU. The outpatient clinic and emergency room volumes continue to increase as children go back to school. I want to extend a thank you to faculty and staff for managing the census, the increase in volumes and for their patience as we determine and implement solutions. 

I am very thankful to see the COVID hospitalizations continue to decrease and vaccination rate increase. As many of you know, UNC will begin enrolling adolescents in the Novavax clinical trial on May 5^th. Dr. Cynthia Gay, in the Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases, is the PI; Drs. Michelle Hernandez, Peyton Thompson, Alison Burbank, and Zach Willis are co-PIs and engaging in subject enrollment. The clinic site is in North Chapel Hill. We are ramping up very quickly and all enrollment will occur between May 5 -21. Please reach out to any of the PIs with questions.

Please help me extend a congratulations to Dr. Edwin Kim for being named the Chief of Pediatric Allergy & Immunology. We are excited to have him serve in this role.

Please also join me in congratulating our Triangle Business Journal “Health Care Heroes,” Andrew Smitherman (Smitty) and Lauren Lux! Very well-deserved!

I want to remind you that virtual PAS is occurring and there are a number of UNC presentations. Also, May 13^th and May 14^th will be our Days of Scholarship – please mark your calendar! I am really looking forward to the presentations.

I am pleased to announce that Edwin Kim has been chosen to serve as the next Division Chief of Allergy and Immunology and will start in that role on July 1^st, 2021.

This is an extremely strong division with clinical, research and educational leadership and we attracted a terrific group of applicants for this position. I am grateful for the work of Dr. Terry Noah, Chair of the Search Committee and the members of this committee.

Edwin completed his undergraduate work at MIT, a Masters degree in Health Policy at Harvard and received his MD from UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He completed Pediatrics residency and an Allergy/Immunology fellowship at Duke University. In 2011, Edwin joined the Department of Medicine as a faulty member in the Rheumatology/Allergy/Immunology division where he is currently appointed as an Associate Professor. He has held leadership roles as the Medical Director of the adult specialty clinic and as the Program Director for the A/I fellowship. Edwin’s research is focused on food allergy and he is the Director of the UNC Food Allergy Initiative Research Group which has expanded their success under his leadership.

I am confident that Edwin will be a great Division Chief. I also want to acknowledge Dave Peden who was the founding Division Chief for Pediatric Allergy/Immunology and Mike Steiner who has served as the interim division chief since last year.

We are very excited to welcome Dr. Katherine Chan to UNC Urology. Dr. Chan joins our Pediatric Urology team and will be the Director of the Pediatric Kidney Stone Clinic and Pediatric Urology Research. 

Dr. Chan was most recently at Indiana University School of Medicine and during her time there received a five-year K23 Career Development Award from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) to develop decision support and outcomes tools for parents and children with hypospadias. 

Dr. Chan will work with patients at the UNC Children's Hospital in Chapel Hill, as well as our Children's Specialty Clinics in both Raleigh and Sanford. Read More...

The Coombs family have been in a relationship with the UNC Children’s Metabolic Team for 23 years. They recently reached out to share how well she is doing and how thankful they are for the wonderful care their daughter has received. In the recent letter to Dr. Davis, they expressed their gratitude to UNC Children’s for “being such a wonderful hospital and having amazing doctors who love and care for their patients.”

“Lauren would not be where she is today without the love and care of your amazing Metabolic team and we are extremely grateful for the liver transplant team. It has been the dedication, love, and care given to her by Dr. Muenzer and Dr. Muge that brought her to the point and kept her alive to receive that live changing liver transplant. I will forever be in their debt. Dr. Muenzer is the most dedicated doctor I have ever known, and he will always be Lauren’s hero in life. She adores him and no matter where she goes in life, he will always be “her doctor”.

“Please know how much the Metabolic team does for parents like us who live day to day not knowing what the next day or even hour might bring. They give us hope and healing and they give our children the absolute best care we could possibly find. Your hospital is blessed with such amazing and caring doctors. … We will always love UNC Pediatrics…” Read More…

Peds Gastroenterology Fellow, Seth Morrison, MD, has been selected as an OGHE Global Health Scholar. He is one of five scholars to start in July of 2021. 

UNC Global Health Scholars will be enrolled in a structured GHSP supported through a partnership of the OGHE, Office of GME, and the residents’ home clinical departments. The OGHE Global Health Scholars Program leverages the extensive global health resources available at UNC Chapel Hill and elsewhere.

8:00a-9:30a - Research and Quality Improvement Oral Presentations

12:00p-1:00p - Case Reports and Medical Education Oral Presentations

12:30p-1:30p - Poster Session

All learners are highly encouraged to submit an abstract by Monday, April 12. Any abstracts received after this deadline will not be eligible for oral presentations or awards. If you are selected to give an oral presentation, you will be notified by April 23.  

For those submitting basic/bench, translational, clinical research, or quality improvement abstracts, please be sure to FOLLOW THIS FORMAT. The ABSTRACT SUBMISSION FORM CAN BE FOUND HERE.

This climate survey, due May 7th, is designed to help us gain an understanding by learning about our community’s perspectives and experiences related to diversity, equity and inclusion. The data collected will be used to understand the present climate here within the Department of Pediatrics and to inform current and future decisions about supporting a diverse, inclusive and vibrant campus community.

Your participation and responses will be strictly confidential and will not be part of any academic, medical, employment or disciplinary record. No individually identifiable information will be reported.

Completing this climate survey should take about 7 minutes and the results will be analyzed by an outside source. Thank you for your time!

Hernandez Highlighted by NC Thoracic Society: Wearable Hardware and AI Innovations for Asthma & Cough Monitoring

Asthma exacerbations are characterized by bronchoconstriction, mucus production, and inflammatory cell recruitment. Wearable technology can measure a host of physiologic parameters that may be predictive of an impending asthma exacerbation including heart rate variability, activity levels, galvanic skin response, wheezing, and coughing. In particular, a recent study suggested that nocturnal cough and sleep quality have useful properties as markers for asthma control and may enable early detection of asthma attacks.

UNC Children’s Pediatrician Wellbeing Program Expanded Enrollment! 

For more information, continue reading here and contact Suzanne Kennedy or Terry Noah.

Congratulations to Collin Orr, MD, Jennifer Gutierrez-Wu, MD and Xavier Williams, MD, MPH for being selected to serve on the APA CORNET Executive Committee.

Read more about CORNET, their goals, research, resources, and leadership at www.academicpeds.org/groups-networks/research-networks/cornet.

Carolina for the Kids $2K Fellows Award granted to Pediatric Genetics and Metabolism Fellows, Michael Adams, MD and Elizabeth Jalazo, MD. With the support of their mentors Cindy Powell, MD and Jonathan Berg, MD the project will develop an EHR fingerprint for Angelman syndrome to enable earlier diagnosis. Patients with Angelman syndrome, as well as many other rare developmental disorders often endure a prolonged diagnostic odyssey. We propose to interogate EHR to provide clinical decision support for providers to order appropriate testing for patients identified as high risk for having Angelman syndrome based on a pattern of healthcare utilization and ICD10 diagnoses. Funding duration 4/2021 – 10/2022.

Jalazo E, Vogel-Farley V, Thurm A, Tjernagel J, Wheeler A, and Raspa A. The role of Patient Advocacy Groups in Promoting Research in IDDs – Perspectives from Patient Advocates. Oral Presentation at the 54^th Gatlinburg Conference 2021 – Patient-Researcher Partnerships Across Rare Genetic Forms of NDD and ASD – April 2021. https://research.lsi.ku.edu/gatlinburg/symposia/symposium09.pdf

Jalazo E, Winslow A, Felton T, Weimer E, Montgomery N, Moran T, Spence E. A Novel De Novo PGM3 Pathogenic Mutation Identified in an Infant Presenting with Abnormal TREC Assay and Severe Neutropenia. Accepted for American College of Medical Genetics Annual Clinical Genetics Meeting April 13-16, 2021.

Lisa P. Spees, PhD; Laura Farnan, PhD; Michael Adams, MD; Karen Hicklin, PhD; Jeannette Bensen, PhD; Jonathan Berg, MD, PhD; Bradford Powell, MD, PhD; Kristen Hassmiller Lich, PhD, "Testing and Extending Recommended Algorithms for Identifying Genetic Disease-Related Encounters in Pediatric Patients". Accepted for American College of Medical Genetics Annual Clinical Genetics Meeting April 13-16, 2021

Michael Adams, Elizabeth R. Jalazo, Thomas Felton, Steven P. Trau, Cynthia M. Powell, Bi-allelic SPEG variants Identified in an Infant Presenting with Severe Hypotonia, Failure to Thrive, and 5-oxoprolinuria. Accepted for American College of Medical Genetics Annual Clinical Genetics Meeting April 13-16, 2021.

James Yarnall, Carl Seashore, Jacob Lohr "Timing of Vaccine Preference Development among First-Time US Parents," has been accepted for the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2021 Virtual Meeting. 

Meredith Johnson and Maria Ferris “Impact of Family Functioning & Resilience on Adolescent Healthcare Transition Planning," has been accepted for the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2021 Virtual Meeting. 

Allison, B.A, Rea, S., Mikesell, L., et al. “Perceptions of the Provider-Patient Relationship Following the COVID Transition to Telehealth Visits.” Poster presentation at: Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting, virtual, May 2021. 

Jennifer Gutierrez-Wu, Victor Ritter, Allison Pittman, Odalys Aleman, Isaac Tymann, Kori Flower. Acculturation, Education, and Spanish-Speaking Parents’ Health Information Technology Use and Interest 

He L, Kennedy AS, Houck S, Aleksandrov A, Quinney NL, Cyr-Scully A, Cholon DM, Gentzsch M, Randell SH, Ren HY, Cyr DM. DNAJB12 and Hsp70 triage arrested intermediates of N1303K-CFTR for endoplasmic reticulum-associated autophagy. Mol Biol Cell. 2021 Apr 1;32(7):538-553. doi: 10.1091/mbc.E20-11-0688. Epub 2021 Feb 3. PMID: 33534640

Alhadi MA, Friedman LM, Karlsson EA, Cohen-Lavi L, Burkovitz A, Schultz-Cherry S, Noah TL, Weir SS, Shulman LM, Beck MA, Hertz T. Obesity is associated with an altered baseline and post-vaccination influenza antibody repertoire. medRxiv [Preprint]. 2021 Mar 5:2021.03.02.21252785. doi: 10.1101/2021.03.02.21252785. PMID: 33688682; PMCID: PMC7941659.

Kato T, Mikami Y, Sun L, Rogers TD, Grubb BR, Morrison CB, Ehre C, Sears PR, Ostrowski LE, Randell SH, Boucher RC. Reuse of Cell Culture Inserts for in vitro Human Primary Airway Epithelial Cell Studies. Am J Respir Cell Mol Biol. 2021 Mar 31. doi: 10.1165/rcmb.2021-0033LE. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 33788673.

Lin FC, Cai J, Deng Y, Esther CR Jr. Inverse probability weighted estimation for recurrent events data with missing category. Stat Med. 2021 Mar 4. doi: 10.1002/sim.8927. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 33660283.

Pearson K, Mayer-Hamblett N, Goss CH, Retsch-Bogart GZ, VanDalfsen JM, Burks P, Rosenbluth D, Clancy JP, Hoffman A, Nichols DP. The impact of SARS-CoV-2 on the cystic fibrosis foundation therapeutics development network. J Cyst Fibros. 2021 Mar;20(2):195-197. doi: 10.1016/j.jcf.2020.12.007. Epub 2020 Dec 15. PMID: 33349583; PMCID: PMC7834129.

Sears PR, Bustamante-Marin XM, Gong H, Markovetz MR, Superfine R, Hill DB, Ostrowski LE. Induction of ciliary orientation by matrix patterning and characterization of mucociliary transport. Biophys J. 2021 Mar 9:S0006-3495(21)00204-6. doi: 10.1016/j.bpj.2021.01.041. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 33705757.

Tamburro RF, Cooke KR, Davies SM, Goldfarb S, Hagood JS, Srinivasan A, Steiner ME, Stokes D, DiFronzo N, El-Kassar N, Shelburne N, Natarajan A; Pulmonary Complications of Pediatric Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Workshop Participants. Pulmonary Complications of Pediatric Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation. A National Institutes of Health Workshop Summary. Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2021 Mar;18(3):381-394. doi: 10.1513/AnnalsATS.202001-006OT. PMID: 33058742; PMCID: PMC7919149.

Stephanie Schwartz, faculty in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine invites us to meet Kennedy Lang Schwartz! She made her arrival on Monday April 19th, weighing 8lbs 10oz! 

The Triangle Business Journal presented Andrew Smitherman, MD, MSc, MPH and Lauren Lux, MSW, LCSW, with the Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Champion Award Presented by First Citizens Bank during the 2021 Health Care Heroes award ceremony. The event, held virtually April 15, honored Triangle individuals and organizations for putting innovation and compassion to work to improve the human condition.

Smitherman, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Medical Director of UNC Lineberger’s Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Cancer Program, and Lux, AYA Cancer Program director, were honored for their contributions to improve the health of people ages 13 to 39 who have cancer.

In honor of Carrie Ann Gilmore. Benefitting UNC Children's Hospital Pediatric Hematology and Oncology Fund. Visit www.carrieongolf.com.

When parents have a child diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis they are commonly filled with fear and dread. What comes next? They quickly realize that their new life would include many trips to the hospital for doctor visits, blood draws, throat cultures, and at times, hospitalizations. This diagnosis also introduces you to lots of new people. And when scared parents think about coming to clinic at UNC, the first face that usually saw was Sherry McFadden’s kind and smiling face. After 30 years of service Sherry is retiring at the end of April, 2021. She is excited to be spending time with her family and beloved grandchildren. I am happy for Sherry, but sad at the loss of her presence in my daily rhythm of life.

I first met Sherry 15 years ago when I transferred from working on “5 children’s” to being a nurse in the pulmonary clinic. It didn’t take me long to realize that Sherry was the person I wanted to be paired with to learn everything about everything. I could tell many Sherry stories but mostly I want to share how much she cares for each and every one of your families. She is a wonderful friend and coworker.

Every clinic day involves many moving pieces but we all know who is in charge of keeping everything running smoothly--Sherry. If you think I’m kidding - ask one of your doctors who is the most vital person to our clinic? No matter how crazy things get or how busy we are she always has a smile on her face and greets the children with love and patience. This is a critical team member that we will have to learn to live without. Please read a few stories and wishes from Sherry's patients here.

This is not a good bye but we will see you later. We leave you with a big hug not from 6 feet away. Love, blessings and Godspeed my friend.