• Letter from the Chair
• Early Summer Represents Transition for Residency and Fellowship Admin Members
• Important Notice: Adding Your UNMC Email Account to Your Children's Outlook
• A Review of Research Conduct with CHRI Executive Director Ann Anderson Berry, MD, PhD
• Faculty Promotions
• Volunteers Needed for Community Partner Day on July 9
• Celebrations
• Staff Milestones

It's been another exciting month in the UNMC Department of Pediatrics. It's already time to welcome a new intern class. They have completed their orientation and will begin on service today. It's always enjoyable to get to meet and interact with a new class of residents. Please also remember that they are new to the system and will be feeling that steep learning curve these next few weeks. A little bit of patience, understanding and encouragement will go a long way!



This month's newsletter highlights the unique challenges for residency and fellowship administrators at this time of the year. It’s a unique time of goodbyes and hellos for them. Please give them a thank you if you see them around!

We are also including some follow-up information you heard first at the department meeting in June. Two very important topics for everyone right now:

1. Email updates – Make sure you can access both Children's Nebraska and UNMC emails. This is always something of importance for our faculty. The current IT upgrades give us a moment to ensure we are up to date with the latest changes and that we are receiving all of the emails we need without missing anything! 

2. Research updates – There is a new Canvas instructional course coming for all faculty that provides information on the basics of the responsible conduct of research. Watch for more information on accessing this course coming soon.



Finally, today, we celebrate the faculty who achieved advancement in academic rank this year. This is a major milestone for these individuals, and we celebrate their achievements together! Congratulations!

Left: Cindy Colpitts stands in front of her office door decorated with holiday cards from residents she has supported. Her crocheted flower was a gift from a 2024 graduate. Right: Jessie Coyer with Emily Dietle, MD, and Ahmad Miri, MD, at their fellowship graduation ceremony.

Through their years of experience, Cindy Colpitts, GME educational program coordinator II, Pediatric Gastroenterology & Pediatric Transplant Hepatology, and fellowship coordinator, Developmental/Behavioral Pediatrics, have come to understand and accept that June is an intense month. Each year at this time, they say goodbye to dear friends they have supported along their academic journeys. Concurrently, they are meeting the new residents and fellows as they arrive on campus. "In June, it's so exciting to meet the incoming individuals and feel their excitement and enthusiasm," Cindy says. "But while you are doing that, you heart is a little bit broken by the people that who moved on," Jessie adds.

In her role, Cindy shepherds residents through their pediatrics residency, assisting them through what will be some of the most challenging years of their lives. She helps them to decide areas of interest, to manage the long hours and intense learning and, in many cases, to acclimate themselves to UNMC and Omaha. "In those first months, Brooke Seaton, my fellow coordinator, and I are their lifelines," Cindy says. "Helping them get established is quite a job, but it also is how we start to get to know them.”

While being interviewed about the orientation of the first-year residents, Cindy's phone rings and buzzes with requests from this past May's graduates needing help for their onboarding at their new institutions. "This month and into July, more so than any other time of the year, feels like we are being pulled in two directions," she says. "But, empowering our people for success, no matter where they are, is what we are here for."

As a fellowship coordinator, the learners Jessie supports are further along on their career journey but still require help navigating the program. The stresses and challenges on her learners are like those of residents, yet also decidedly different. More often than in residency, the time commitment of a fellowship must be managed with the demands of a family. "I'm really not sure how they do it," Jesse says. "To manage pregnancy, motherhood or fatherhood in the middle of becoming an expert in a medical specialty is an amazing thing to witness."

Both Jessie and Cindy consider their positions more of a calling than a job. They see their learners in their best and worst moments, share their joys and sorrows and witness them grow in confidence and skill. "We all have our own families, but we can't help but feel like the residents and fellows we support are like our children as well," Cindy says.  .

“In these roles, you could literally work 24 hours a day, so you have to monitor your work/life balance,” Jessie says. “The lines get pretty blurred though when you have such a familial connection to your fellows.”

Thank you to Cindy and Jessie for sharing your stories with us and to all of the residency and fellowship administration team members who make our programs a success. 

On July 9, you will no longer be able to automatically forward the emails you receive at their UNMC email account to your Children's email account. Similarly, emails sent to your Children's email account will not longer be able to be forwarded to your UNMC email account. To avoid missing important emails from either institution, it will be necessary to add your add your UNMC email account to your Children's Outlook, or vice versa. The following instructions are taken from an article in The Pulse written by Stephen Dolter, MD, chief medical information officer, Children's Nebraska, and associate professor, Division of Hospital Medicine:

The first step is to remove any redirect rules you may currently have in your UNMC account. Following this, you can add your “other” account to the Outlook application at each institution (Children’s to UNMC Outlook and/or UNMC to Children’s).

Scott Raymond, UNMC’s Chief Information & Innovation Officer, sent these instructions for how to disable your forwarding and redirection workflows and add Outlook accounts. They are written as though they will be used on the UNMC campus but will also work if you are trying to add your UNMC account to Children’s Outlook (except iOS).

How to remove redirect/forward rules from mailbox:

1. Log into email on the web in Office 365.
2. Select Settings.
3. Select Mail, which opens the Options panel on the left. Under Mail > Automatic processing, select Inbox and sweep rules.
4. Any rule that has a redirect or forward to a Children’s address, disable the rule first.
5. Then delete the rule.

Once the rule is removed from your mailbox, you can add your Children’s email account to Microsoft Outlook, Outlook on the web, or your mobile device.

Here’s how to do that:

1. Microsoft Outlook (New Outlook):
2. On the View tab, select View settings.
3. Select Accounts > Email accounts.
4. You can now add a new account. Enter your children’s email address and credentials.
5. Proceed through the authentication steps to add the account.

Your Accounts screen will now show both accounts:

Microsoft Outlook (Classic Outlook):

1. Select File > Add Account.
2. What you see next depends on your version of Outlook.
3. For Outlook for Microsoft 365 and Outlook 2016, 2019, or 2021, enter your email address and click Connect. For Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2010, enter your name, email address (Children's email address), and password, and click Next.
4. Proceed through the authentication steps to add the account.
5. If prompted, enter your password again, then select OK > Finish to start using your email account in Outlook.

MacOS:

1. Select Outlook > Preferences > Account.
2. Click the plus (+) sign > New Account.
3. Type your email address > Continue.
4. Type your password > Add Account.
5. Proceed through the authentication steps to add the account.

iOS (only for those who have UNMC mobile device management software installed on their phone and wish to connect to Children’s e-mail):

1. Go to the Outlook app on your mobile device.
2. Click on your picture and click the icon with the plus sign on an envelope.
3. Click Add Email account, enter in your Children’s email address, and authenticate to add the account.

After following Scott’s instructions, you’ll have both e-mail accounts on your devices. I strongly encourage you to resist the temptation to view them together and instead leave them separate. This will prevent sending messages from the wrong account.

If you have any trouble adding your UNMC account to Children’s Outlook, you can contact the Children’s IT Service Desk at 402-955-6700. Please don’t take out your frustrations on them, though—they had nothing to do with the change. For questions regarding adding your Children’s account to Outlook on your UNMC devices, please contact Kirk Grauf and Aaron Dorcy.

We have a new cohort of trainees, including summer students, medical students, residents, fellows and graduate students, excited to embark on the next steps in their training. For many, if not all of these individuals, research will be a part of their training, and it is critical that we all are familiar with the basics of responsible research conduct. Today, I’ll take the time to review a few highlights and explain how CHRI resources are set up to ensure your work is ethically conducted, performed in a timely manner and impactful in furthering our knowledge of and improving outcomes in child health.

The first step in conducting research is to become Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) trained. You can find CITI training modules required by UNMC for research at either of our campuses here. 

Once training is complete, it is necessary to determine if your project is a research project (hypothesis driven) or a quality improvement project (implementation of a clinical practice that is based on someone else’s work). This can be done at this link. A guide to the UNMC Institutional Review Board (IRB) can be found here. It should be helpful in answering most of your questions, but if you are in doubt about a process, it is always a great idea to call the UNMC IRB. They are very helpful and want you to succeed the first time without having to take unnecessary steps.

Feasibility: If you are considering a retrospective or prospective research project, it is not acceptable to search in the electronic medical record to see if there are enough patients to perform your study. CHRI does have a resource to do this for you in a HIPAA- and research-compliant manner. You can reach out to READi Core [app.smartsheet.com] with this free request.

Your IRB must be complete and approved before you start any study activities. This is critical and the most important conduct tenant of ethical research. Children’s Nebraska uses the UNMC IRB as its IRB of record. Some multi-center studies will use a central IRB, but this must be approved by the UNMC IRB. CHRI will help you with this if you have questions.

If you are contacted by an industry company about a study in your subspeciality, please loop in CHRI. We will help you with the initial confidentiality agreement and subsequent negotiations with the company to ensure that all research is conducted within the standards of our institution. CHRI will also contract with those entities for the financial support to conduct the study. A faculty member should never sign a contract with any outside entity.

Finally, as faculty members, we are completely responsible for the research actions of our trainees. Please communicate to them that they need to keep you updated on each step of their research and ensure that you double check that their IRB is complete and approved. Regarding data, confirm that their data is stored in a secure manner and not shared inappropriately. Data must be destroyed or transferred to you prior to their leaving the institution. If data must leave with them, we need an official Data Transfer Agreement (DTA) with their new institution.

Thanks for all you do for kids and their health in your research activities. If you have any questions, please reach out to me at alanders@unmc.edu.

Congratulations to Shirley Delair, MD, PhD, chief, Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases; director, Pediatric Residency Global Health Track; and, newly promoted, professor with tenure, Infectious Diseases Division in the Department of Pediatrics.

Kudos to Kelly Kadlec, MD, program director, Pediatric Critical Care Medicine Fellowship, and newly promoted, professor, Division of Critical Care, Department of Pediatrics.

Ashley Deschamp, MD, Division of Pulmonology; Salaheddin Elrokhsi, MD, Division of Endocrinology; Jeffrey Salomon, MD, Division of Critical Care; Hannah Sneller, MD, Division of Emergency Medicine; Melissa Thoene, PhD, Division of Neonatology; Jennifer Winter, MD, Division of Cardiology; Rhonda Wright, MD, Division of Neurology; and Zahi Zeidan, MD, Division of Neonatology, have been promoted to associate professor. Well done to you all! 

Help the department introduce children to careers in science and medicine by volunteering at Community Partner Day on Tuesday, July 9. We are looking for people to fill the following roles.

 

Campus Guides

8:30 a.m. - 1 p.m. (lunch included)

Three to four volunteers needed to guide students from station to station (partial time possible too).

Career Discussions over Lunch

12:15 - 1 p.m. Williams Science Hall (WSH) 1.0.009

Ten faculty, staff or trainee volunteers are needed for career discussions over lunch. These are casual conversations where you can share information about your work/field as well as your educational and career path experiences. 

Email amy.rezac@unmc.edu or scan the QR code above to volunteer.

About Community Partner Career Day

Fifteen students from each organization will spend the day on UNMC’s campus rotating through four stations.

Surgical Simulation - Led by Kathy Schall, MD, Assistant Professor, Surgery-Pediatric General (Davis Global Center - surgical sim suite)

Physiology Lab - Led by Bryan Hackfort, PhD, Assistant Professor, Cellular/Integrative Physiology (DRC1 6024)

iEXCEL Tour and Careers in Experiential Learning Technologies - Led by Moriah McCune, Community Engagement Coordinator, iEXCEL (Davis Global Center)

Career Discussions over Lunch - Moderated by Amy Rezac-Elgohary and Jackie Ostronic (Williams Science Hall 1.0.009)

Congratulations to those celebrating Department of Pediatrics work anniversaries! We wish you all the best for continued success!

• Denise Hoover - 25 years
• William Rizzo, MD - 22 years
• Sharon Stoolman, MD - 21 years
• Ruben Quiros, MD - 15 years
• Raven VonBehren - 14 years
• Jeffrey Delaney, MD - 16 years
•  Ling Li, MD, PhD - 13 years
• Sarah O'Neill - 11 years
• Teri Mauch, MD, PhD - 12 years
• Matthew VanOrmer, PhD - 9 years
• Russell Hopp, DO - 6 years
• Lisa Runco - 6 years
• Amber Heinert - 5 years
• Matthew Sandbulte, PhD - 5 years
• William Snyder - 5 years
• Scheherzade Aslam, MD - 4 years
• Eleanor Gradidge, MD - 2 years
• Lisa Gerjevic - 1 year
• Jennifer Goetzinger -1 year
• Laura Holmberg - 1 year
• Christine Pickett - 1 year
• William Snyder - 1 year