Meetings and Transition

As I get up more in age and have settled into my practice, I find myself wanting to find more meaningful purpose to helping children. Yes, the day in and day out practice of peds has some good qulity points like helping the whole girls soccer team after they won the state and got norovirus on the way home on the bus. That felt really good to be able to help. But now, I am trying to help shape pediatrics for the future. I am involved in PROS which stands for Pediatric Research in Office Practice and is a network of pediatricians in practice that will do meaningful projects that will affect their practice. I am doing one now that counsels kids in the 85%-97% of BMI to see if the counseling can help them get healthier. I also am on the steering committee of QUIIN which is the Quality Improvement and Innovation network and have worked on a couple of their projects, Safe and Healthy Beginnings, (newborn bilirubin) and Newborn Screening(ACT sheets). They seem to overlap in what goes on and the QUIIN helps to meet the Mantainence of Certification requirements for the American Board of Pediatrics. What amazes me is how organized I have to be to get it all done, practice, be a mom, a wife and a partner in my practice. In the long run, after spending PROM weekend with my teenager, I realize, I really do want to make a difference and if it is done one meeting or study at a time, then it is worth it foor my kids kids. My sons and their wives and children will look back and remember that mom did it all for us

Another day in Pediatrics

Well, now that all have come back from Easter vacation, I am trying to get back "into the routine". Then when I get to my office I find out that the big Pediatric group in my area has decided to drop their privleges in both of the hospitals that I am on staff leaving my partner and I to cover the hospital by ourselves. Lots of "on call" for us who are now in the mid fifty range. So what a dilemma to work with. In the eyes of the changing reform, we may have to change the way we work with our hospitals. When I called our hospital Medical Director, he said they were not sure how they may react and may even close the pediatrics ward and we then would have to send our patients 30 miles down south to be admitted. The truth is that we probably only had about 6 admissions the whole year. Most of our patients are taken care of in house with IV's in the clinic and Asthma care all day long. My partner and I have discussed the changing environment and we may have to adapt by adding more hours and weekend visits. Another announcement today is that the nurse practitiones in the state think they are "entitled" to write prescriptions and deliver the same quality of care as physicians. They have been trying to get this law changed for over 10 years. Florida is only 1 of 2 states that does not allow N.P.'s to write narcotics and ADHD meds. But the question is "Are they really the same as physicians" If they were, then why didn't they go to medical school. Well, that's all till next week.

Welcome to the Blog

Well, I am just starting to Blog. An idea I got from my niece who is blogging about her pregnancy and our National American Academy of Pediatrics President, Judy Palfry. I visited hers on the AAP.org website and was quite impressed. And also, my predecessors in the FMA have been doing it for years. With all this social media, I am trying to keep up with my kids who are light years ahead of me. When and if I become a Grandma(my son just married three weeks ago) then I want to be ahead of the Social media Wars. Anyway, I am working hard already to bring a new face to the FCAAP/FPS by getting information out there fast so we can get action. I would love to have follower and comments by any of the members. So welcome to the First in a series of Blogs for the chapter. I am looking forward to my presidency and getting to know all the pediatricians around town