Well Beyond Medicine: The Nemours Children's Health Podcast

At Nemours Children’s Hospital, Florida, associates (staff) and patients celebrated “Well Beyond Medicine Day" with some very honored guests. These VIPs stopped by the podcast to talk about osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), a genetic disease in which bones fracture (break) easily, often with no obvious cause or minimal injury. 

Detroit resident Stephen Sheehy is a remarkable man who answered the Nemours Children's Health call for an adult male with OI to be part of the Nemours Children's "Reflections” ad campaign. Already lined up was 4-year-old Nemours OI patient MJ Strickland. Guest host Cheryl Munn boarded our mobile Well Beyond Medicine podcast truck to talk with Steve, MJ’s mom Alex Rice, and the leader of MJ’s care team, Nemours orthopedic surgeon Dr. Alec Stall about OI: how it’s diagnosed and treated today versus when Steve was growing up in the ’70s and ’80s; barriers faced and overcome; the importance of community connection; and how Steve became a model for Nemours.

Host: Cheryl Munn 
Producer: Carol Vassar

Guests: 
Stephen Sheehy, husband, father and adult living with OI
Alex Rice, mom to Nemours Children's Health OI patient MJ
Alec Stall, MD, Vice Chair, Department of Orthopaedics and Orthopaedic Surgeon, Nemours Children's Hospital, Florida

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.

Pediatric Cardiologist Mary Mehta, MD, is the Chief Medical Officer at Nemours Children’s Health, Pensacola. For more than 20 years she has served the communities of the Florida panhandle and southern Alabama. It's a vast swath of land that draws visitors from around the world to its beautiful white sand beaches. It's also a hurricane-prone area dotted with rural communities and military bases. Dr. Mehta discusses the challenges and opportunities that exist to ensure families can access the care and services they need for their children, when and where they need them.

Hear more from Dr. Mehta on Nemours Champions for Children's Health Episode 58.

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.

Navigating Misinformation and Becoming An Academic Sleuth in the Social Media Age was the topic presented as a panel discussion at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting in Washington, DC. Panel member Dr. Atul Malhotra advises healthcare professionals on how best to present evidence-based medical information on social media to avoid misinterpretation and he shares advice for parents and caregivers on how to steer clear of medical misinformation on social media.

We also dig into Dr. Malhotra's neonatal cell therapy research at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, where he serves as Associate Professor Consultant Neonatologist & Head of the Early Neurodevelopment Clinic at Monash Children's Hospital.

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.

Dr.  Brian Alverson is a healthcare clinician, educator, innovator, and patent-holder who currently serves as the Nemours Pediatric Residency Program director. We met up with Brian at the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting to talk about his vision for the Residency program, his recently granted patent for children undergoing spinal taps, and his leadership in working with the American Academy of Pediatrics to create evidence-based guidelines to diagnose and streamline the care of children with urinary tract infections.

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.

Hear about the development of Nemours Children's Health's newest brand campaign, Reflections, which depicts the future of children whose lives are positively impacted when social, cultural and healthcare delivery barriers cease to exist. The campaign also serves as an invitation to every person and organization already on this journey to address the social impacts of health to come together to make full health and wellness a reality for every child across the U.S. 

Featuring:
Gina Altieri, Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs, and Enterprise Chief Communications Officer, Nemours Children's Health

Drew Landmeier, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Nemours Children's Health

Shanky Das, Co-Founder, and Chief Creative Officer, Tilt

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.

Anaphylaxis is a word that sends shivers down the spines of parents, grandparents, and caregivers everywhere, and with good reason - it can be life-threatening. Joining us to define anaphylaxis and give us an update on what’s happening in the research world to prevent and treat it is Dr. Timothy Dribin, Associate Professor in the Division of Emergency Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Dr. Dribin is one of the world’s leading researchers on anaphylaxis in children. He presented primary data on that subject at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) meeting in Washington, DC, where we spoke with him.

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.

Dr. Thomas Babcock is a pediatric otolaryngologist — an ear, nose, and throat specialist, commonly referred to by the acronym ENT. He joined Nemours Children's Health, Pensacola in December 2022 with a specific task: rebuild a much-needed pediatric cochlear implant program for Northwest Florida and Southern Alabama. 

Dr. Babcock was born and raised in the Gulf Coast Region. Serving his community as an ENT specialist has become his mission, one that began just steps from the specialty clinic in Pensacola where we conducted this interview.

Carol Vassar, host/producer

Guest: Thomas Babcock, MD
Nemours Children's Health, Pensacola

Subscribe, review or leave a voicemail with your thoughts at NemoursWellBeyond.org.

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.

There is no single solution to the racial and ethnic disparities that exist in health care today. But myriad efforts are being made. In this episode of the podcast, we’re focusing our conversation on one such effort: The New Century Scholars Resident Mentoring Program from the Academic  Pediatric Association. The New Century Scholars program aims to decrease racial/ethnic disparities by increasing the number of pediatricians working in academic settings such as education, research, and clinical care.  

Here to talk about the program are three past New Century Scholars: 2023 program co-director Dr. Brandi Freeman, an academic pediatrician at the University of Colorado where she also serves as their Vice Chair for diversity, equity, and inclusion; co-director Dr. Morgan Walls, a general academic pediatrician at Atrium Health Wake Forest in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Dr. Rachel Thornton, Vice President and Chief Health Equity Officer for Nemours Children’s Health.

Learn more about the New Century Scholars Resident Mentoring Program.

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.

In a wide-ranging interview conducted at the 2023 Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting, we talk with Dr. Juan Salazar, Chief Medical Officer at Connecticut Children's, about the growing need for collaborative pediatric research, tackling health disparities in a multicultural capital city, and what it was like to be an infectious disease specialist leading a pediatric health care system through a pandemic. 

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.

Beena Kamath-Rayne, MD, MPH, FAAP, is a board-certified pediatrician and neonatologist with 20 years of clinical experience and expertise in clinical research, quality improvement, and medical education. Since 2019, she has served as vice president for Global Newborn and Child Health for the American Academy of Pediatrics. 

While she was in Washington, DC, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) meeting, we had the opportunity to sit down with her to discuss the state of global pediatric health and some of the AAP initiatives designed to improve pediatric health no matter where a child lives. 

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.