News:
Governor Scott Visits All Children's, Stresses Support of Graduate Medical Education
Case Study: How Graduate Medical Education Has Made
a Difference for One
All Children's Family
Dr. Ellen Receives
Alumni Achievement Award
from Temple University
Dr. Stratakis, 2013 Kuehnle Family Visiting Professor in Pediatric Endocrinology, Gives Grand Rounds Presentation

News from Baltimore:
Common Genetic Pathway
Could Be Conduit to Pediatric Tumor Treatment

Pediatric Grand Rounds
14th Annual International Symposium on Congenital
Heart Disease
Upcoming Conferences



Pediatric Grand Rounds
Fridays, 12:30 - 1:30 PM
Location:
All Children's Hospital Education and Conference Center


December 20
SPACITIY MANAGEMENT IN CEREBRAL PALSY

Speaker: Dennis A. Hart, MD, Director, Rehabilitation, All Children's Hospital Johns Hopkins Medicine, St. Petersburg, FL

Learning Objectives: After attending this activity, participants will demonstrate the ability to: describe the current treatments available for spasticity in the cerebral palsy population.

December 27
No Pediatric Grand Rounds due to Winter Holiday

January 17
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT JUVENILE IDIOPATHIC ARTHRITIS

Speaker: Laisa Santiago, MD


For an archive of past Grand Rounds presentations, go to www.allkids.org/cme



14th Annual International Symposium on Congenital Heart Disease

February 15-18, 2014

The 14th Annual International Symposium on Congenital Heart Disease will feature a world-class faculty of domestic and international experts in Cardiology, Cardiac Critical Care, Cardiac Surgery, Nursing, Hospital Administration, and Ethics. This year the conference will focus on Diseases of the Cardiac Valves from the Fetus to the Adult. The program will include didactic, case-based, and interactive presentations as well as pathologic heart specimens and practical workshops. Special tracks dedicated to cardiovascular nursing and hospital administration will be included making this a truly team-based symposium.

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ACCOMODATIONS




Upcoming Conferences
38th Annual Florida Suncoast Pediatric Conference
June 19-22, 2014
The Ritz-Carlton, Sarasota, FL

10th Symposium on Advances in Perinatal Cardiology
October 22-26, 2014
Renaissance Vinoy and Golf Club, St. Petersburg, FL
 


Florida Governor Rick Scott visited All Children's Hospital Wednesday morning to underscore his support of graduate medical education, while also giving high to praise to the ACH medical staff and mission.

"We're not going to have a great state if we don't have a great health care system," Scott said before a battery of TV crews, assembled on the outdoor play area of All Children's. "And one of the most important things we can do is make sure we have great doctors."

Scott commended the work done at several other hospitals in the region and USF Health. And he complimented ACH President and Physician in Chief Jonathan Ellen, M.D. on his accomplishments and vision, standing on a stage that also included Elizabeth Dudek, Secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration; Pallavi Iyer, M.D., head of the All Children's endocrinology department; Jennifer Casatelli, M.D., an ACH hospitalist; and All Children's surgeon Paul Danielson, M.D.

"At All Children's hospital, (Dr. Ellen) is leading the academic transformation through the development of new education and research programs, including the innovative All Children's Hospital Johns Hopkins Medicine Pediatric Residency and Training Program that begins next July," Scott said. "I want to congratulate Dr. Ellen and the entire team at All Children's for all their great work."

Scott then stressed the importance of graduate medical education in building strong residency programs and creating future physicians who will put down roots in Florida.

"Today's medical students are tomorrow's doctors," he said. "More doctors in Florida means less wait times, more access to health care services and keeping some of our brightest in our state."

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Tommy Loope is like most active, healthy 5-year-old boys - perhaps even more so. He's a member of a Clearwater area swim team, plays organized soccer and finds time for T-ball, too.

But his parents, Peter and Amy Loope, know that their thriving son might not be alive today if the state had not funded an expansion of the Florida Newborn Screening program several years before he was born.

As a result, doctors at All Children's Hospital were immediately able to detect that Tommy had a rare condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) - a cluster of inherited disorders of the adrenal gland that left him unable to produce the the vital hormone cortisol. With the diagnosis made when he was only days old, due to the additional tests made possible, Tommy began a critical treatment regimen that likely saved his life.

"Quite candidly, had we not had that Newborn Screening Test, Tommy probably wouldn't be with us today," says his father. "We were lucky to catch it."

Yet that's not the only crucial state medical funding that makes the Loopes feel fortunate today. Their son has benefitted profoundly from funding of the Graduate Medical Education (GME) program, allowing for continuity of care for Tommy with a doctor who saw first saw him as a pediatric endocrine fellow at the University of South Florida, and now as head of the endocrinology program at All Children's.

She is Pallavi Iyer, M.D. - the only physician the Loopes will need for Tommy through his early 20s, thanks to the GME funding that allowed Dr. Iyer to come into their lives during fellowship.

"What Tommy had was pretty rare - one in about 18,000 kids have it," Peter says. "And we met Dr. Iyer on Day One in the emergency room at All Children's, where we got our diagnosis. She was a fellow, working with the senior attending physician at USF at the time, Dr. Dorothy Shulman. And she's been part of the team that's guided us through this from the very beginning."

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Congratulations to All Children's Hospital President and Physician in Chief Jonathan Ellen, M.D., for receiving the Temple University School of Medicine Alumni Achievement Award.

The award, presented November 16th during a formal celebration on the university campus, is given to an alumnus/alumna whose contributions to medicine have reached national or international stature. School of Medicine Dean Larry Kaiser, M.D., presented the award to Dr. Ellen and also bestowed awards in the categories of Honored Professor, Alumni Service and Alumnus of the Year.

"On behalf of the All Children's Hospital Board of Trustees I would like to congratulate Dr. Ellen on this honor," said Jay Fleece, Chairman, All Children's Hospital Board of Trustees. "From our first conversations with Dr. Ellen we were impressed with his past accomplishments and his vision for the future of All Children's-and our appreciation of that vision and his leadership continues to grow."

"I'm proud to be an alumnus of Temple because of its commitment to community. I have continued that commitment through clinical education research and now administration," noted Dr. Ellen.

Located in Philadelphia, the School of Medicine is part of the Temple University Health System, which includes Temple University Hospital and Fox Chase Cancer Center, an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. Its other major teaching affiliates include the Geisinger Clinic, a Pennsylvania-based integrated health services organization that is widely recognized for its development of innovative care models.

Constantine Stratakis, M.D. visited All Children's Hospital Friday, Dec. 13 for a Grand Rounds presentation on adrenal insufficiency and Cushing syndrome. Dr. Stratakis is a tenured investigator at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). He has been the head of the Section on Genetics and Endocrinology at the NICHD since its inception in 1999. He is also the Acting Scientific Director for the Division of Intramural Research in the NICHD, and the head of the Program in Developmental Endocrinology and Genetics.

Dr. Stratakis' presentation (available on allkids.org/cme) focused on diagnosing Cushing Syndrome and examining the role genetics play in disease development. While discussing the difficulty in early diagnosis, he stressed that, "If you take nothing else away from today's presentation you need to remember that the growth chart of a child is a vital tool. There is no other disease where you have the weight gain at the same time that you have a slower height gain. Unless you do your growth chart work, the disease is hard to identify early."

The well-attended Grand Rounds was supported by the Kuehnle Family Visiting Professorship. This professorship was established in 2011 by former All Children's Hospital Trustee Edward Kuehnle and his wife Linda, in honor of Allen Root, M.D. who founded the pediatric endocrinology program at All Children's in 1973. The funds made available each year through this professorship will be used to underwrite an annual visiting professor who specializes in pediatric endocrinology or focuses on diseases associated with endocrinology.

Investigators at Johns Hopkins have found a known genetic pathway to be active in many difficult-to-treat pediatric brain tumors called low-grade gliomas, potentially offering a new target for the treatment of these cancers. In laboratory studies, researchers found that the pathway, called mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), was highly active in pediatric low-grade gliomas, and that mTOR activity could be blocked using an experimental drug, leading to decreased growth of these tumors.

"We think mTOR could function as an Achilles heel," says study co-author Eric Raabe, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor of pediatrics, oncology and pathology at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. "It drives cancer growth, but when mTOR is inhibited, the tumor falls apart." The work was described Nov. 7 in the journal Neuro-Oncology.

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