Well Beyond Medicine: The Nemours Children's Health Podcast

We begin our four-part series “Hot Topics in Neonatology” with the story of author and preemie family advocate Deborah Discenza. Deb was 30 weeks pregnant when she gave birth to her daughter, Becky.  In this episode she shares their NICU story of persistence, resilience, and how she is paying it forward by helping and supporting other pregnant people and their pre-term babies.

Find resources and more info at PreemieWorld Foundation.

Guest: Deb Discenza, Founder & Executive Director, PreemieWorld Foundation Inc.

Host/Producer: Carol Vassar

Full Series:
Part 2, Episode 51
Fluid Dynamics: What's New in Treating EPRA

Part 3, Episode 52
Fragile Beginnings: Exploring NEC in Newborns

Part 4, Episode 53
Babies in Crisis: Understanding Neonatal Abstinence 

Views expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views of the host or management. 

Subscribe, review or let your voice be heard at NemoursWellBeyond.org.

New research indicates that injecting neuroblastoma tumors with Zika virus can shrink or eliminate those tumors in mice, suggesting that the virus could someday serve as an effective cancer therapy. This is newly published in the peer-reviewed journal Cancer Research Communications, from the American Association for Cancer Research.

On this week's episode, we hear from the study's lead, Dr. Tamarah Westmoreland, and first author, Dr. Joseph Mazar, both with Nemours Children’s Health, about this incredibly exciting research.

For more information, read the recent press release about the study.

EXCITING UPDATE - AUG. 20, 2024: Nemours Children's received its largest donation to a single research project thanks to the Pass It On to Kids Foundation. Its $7 million donation will advance the groundbreaking research harnessing the Zika virus to target and eradicate neuroblastoma and ovarian cancers.

Guests:
Tamarah J. Westmoreland, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Surgery, Nemours Children’s Hospital, Florida
Joseph Mazar, PhD, Research Scientist, Nemours Children’s Hospital, Florida

Carol Vassar, host/producer
 

Views expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views of the host or management. 

Subscribe, review or let your voice be heard at NemoursWellBeyond.org.

SEGMENT 1:  Culinary medicine is an evidence-based medical practice that affirms the saying "You are what you eat." One part food, one part cooking, and one part medical science, culinary medicine aims to help folks make the right decisions about food to help prevent and treat disease. Pediatric gastroenterologist Dr. Maria Mascarenhas with the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia counts among her many specialties culinary medicine. On this episode, we talk about her passion for this relatively unknown but vitally important sliver of health care.

SEGMENT 2: Whenever a child leaves the hospital setting for home, it's a cause for celebration. But it's also the moment when the role of hospital-based child life providers — the specialists who help children cope with their medical experience — often ends. For children whose medical conditions continue to require treatment, even at home, their psychosocial needs don't end, and one Texas-based organization, Child Life On Call, is using technology to bring important child life services to kids outside the hospital setting, no matter where in the world they may live.

Carol Vassar, producer

Guests:
Maria Mascarenhas, MBBS, pediatric gastroenterologist, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Katie Taylor, CCLS, CEO & Founder, Child Life on Call

Jamie Gentille, MPH, CCLS, Advisory Board Member, Child Life on Call

Views expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views of the host or management. 

Subscribe, review or let your voice be heard at NemoursWellBeyond.org.

SEGMENT 1: We're exploring the world of pediatric anesthesiology and the pressures and stresses of being an anesthesiologist with Dr. Destiny Chau, Dr. Meera Gangadharan, and Dr. Meenakshi Atteri.

SEGMENT 2: It's a trip to Philadelphia Marathon Weekend to learn more about the mentorship work of Students Run Philly Style with its Executive Director Lauren Kobylarz .

Host/Producer: Carol Vassar

Guests:
Meera Gangadharan, MD, FAAP, FASA, Pediatric Anesthesiologist, Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital, Houston
Destiny Chau, MD, Pediatric Anesthesiologist, and Professor, Division of Pediatric Cardiovascular Anesthesia, University of Arkansas Medical System
Meenakshi Atteri, MD, Pediatric Anesthesiologist, Arkansas Children's Hospital
Lauren Kobylarz, Executive Director, Students Run Philly Style

Views expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views of the host or management. 

Subscribe, review or let your voice be heard at NemoursWellBeyond.org.

It's a pediatric health care innovation episode of Well Beyond Medicine covering two new tools applicable to improving the health and health care experience of the smallest of babies.

SEGMENT 1: It was a casual exchange between two colleagues that proved to be the point of conception for an infant positioning cradle, dubbed SmolTap, a simple medical device designed to safely, comfortably and easily hold an infant who is undergoing a spinal tap.

SEGMENT 2:  We'll talk about the smart baby bottle that is helping feed and measure outcomes for premature babies still in the NICU, where feeding issues are not uncommon.

Guests:
Robert "Bob" Cooper, CEO, SmolTap
Tom Hickey, Communications Advisor to SmolTap
Tommy Cunningham, PhD, Co-Founder & CEO, nfant®

Carol Vassar, host/producer

Views expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views of the host or management. 

Subscribe, review or let your voice be heard at NemoursWellBeyond.org.

You've probably heard the news: an FDA-approved treatment for sickle cell disease applying the gene-editing tool CRISPR is now available in the U.S. It's a landmark moment in medical science on two fronts: the treatment - called Casgevey - is the first FDA-approved regimen to utilize CRISPR technology to treat any genetic disease. And it's a huge leap forward in the treatment of sickle cell, a genetic disease affecting about 100,000 people in the U.S. - mostly African Americans.

Today, we'll delve into what this means for patients, learn more about the process they must undergo to receive a genetic sickle cell treatment, the little-known side effect of that process that affects their fertility - and how their fertility can be preserved.

Guests:
Manisha Bansal, MD, Hematology/Oncology, Nemours Children's Health, Jacksonville
Vrunda Patel, MD, Pediatric & Adolescent Gynecology, Nemours Children's Hospital, Delaware
Danielle Morley, BSN, RN, CPHON, Program Manager, Andrew McDonough B+ Fertility Preservation Program
Fredrianna Copeland Webster, advocate and sickle cell disease patient, Nemours Children’s Health, Jacksonville

Carol Vassar, host/producer

For more information on sickle cell disease and to hear more of Fredianna's story, be sure to check out Episode 34 of the Well Beyond Medicine podcast.

Click here to see Fredriana's billboard for Florida State College at Jacksonville. 

Views expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views of the host or management. 

Subscribe, review or let your voice be heard at NemoursWellBeyond.org.

SEGMENT 1:  Orange County, California is home to nearly 3.2 million people. Its 42 miles of beachfront and major attractions such as Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, and Mission San Juan Capistrano, make it a major West Coast tourist destination. Orange County is also home to the Children's Hospital of Orange County (CHOC), where Dr. Sandip Godambe is the Chief Medical Officer. In a wide-ranging discussion, we talk with Dr. Godambe about the ways in which CHOC's approach is similar to Nemours Children's Health in going well beyond medicine. 

SEGMENT 2: Childhood obesity is a serious problem in the United States, putting children and adolescents at risk for poor health. The prevalence of obesity for children and adolescents aged 2-19 pre-pandemic was 19.7%, affecting about 14.7 million kids. We'll dive into this issue with Nemours Children's Health Dr. Kirk Reichard — a leading national expert on childhood obesity and its treatments.

Guests: 
Sandip Godambe, MD, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Children’s Hospital of Orange County

Kirk W. Reichard, MD, Clinical Director, Division of General Surgery, Nemours Children’s Hospital, Delaware 

Carol Vassar, producer/host

Views expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views of the host or management. 

Subscribe, review or let your voice be heard at NemoursWellBeyond.org.

SEGMENT 1: The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that in 2022, one in every five children in the United States was unsure where, when, or even if they would get their next meal. Childhood food insecurity significantly impacts physical, social, cognitive, and behavioral development.

Blessings in a Backpack has become a national leader and model for fighting food insecurity in kids and working to put them on the path to a healthy start by providing hungry children with backpacks filled with nutritious food items - enough to last from when a child leaves school on Friday until they return the following Monday.

SEGMENT 2: Nemours Children's Health Assistant Vice President and Chief Patient Experience Officer Dr. Peggy Greco outlines what she sees as the three most important influences on a child's mental and emotional health.

Guests:
Beth Bush, Director of Athletic & Strategic Partnerships, Blessings in a Backpack
Peggy Parish, Community Engagement Director, Nemours Children's Health, Florida
Peggy Greco, PhD, Assistant Vice President, Chief Patient Experience Officer, Nemours Children’s Health

Carol Vassar, host/producer

Views expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views of the host or management. 

Subscribe, review or let your voice be heard at NemoursWellBeyond.org.

Healthcare has always been a hotbed of innovation, though it seems today to be moving forward at light speed, with a wide range of advancements to enhance the efficiency, effectiveness, safety, accessibility, and quality of healthcare services at the bedside and behind the scenes.

We're talking healthcare innovation today with two national experts whom we met up with at HLTH 2023, including Nemours Children’s Chief Innovation Officer Eric Jackson, MD, MBA, and nurse futurist Bonnie Clipper, DNP. 

Host/Producer: Carol Vassar

Guests:
Bonnie Clipper, DNP, MA, MBA, RN, CENP, FACHE, FAAN, Founder & CEO, Innovation Advantage
Eric V. Jackson Jr., MD, MBA, Chief Innovation Officer, Nemours Children's Health

Views expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views of the host or management. 

Subscribe, review or let your voice be heard at NemoursWellBeyond.org.

Dr.  Stephen Klasko is a dynamic healthcare visionary who led Jefferson Health in Philadelphia as its President and CEO during much of the COVID-19 pandemic and currently serves as Executive in Residence for the venture capital group General Catalyst (GC). 

GC made news when they announced their intention to create the Health Assurance Transformation Corporation, through which they plan to buy an as-yet-unnamed healthcare system. The principles of this new company are based on Dr. Klasko's 2020 book entitled "UnHealthCare: A Manifesto for Health Assurance," and he gives us the basics in a wide-ranging conversation. 

Carol Vassar, producer

Views expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views of the host or management. 

Subscribe, review or let your voice be heard at NemoursWellBeyond.org.