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| Alan B. Retik, MD, FAAP, FACS |
Alan B. Retik, MD, FAAP, FACS, has accepted the position of executive chair/medical director of Children's Hospital Boston's International Health Services (IHS). He will also continue in his role as chief of Urology. Children's is restructuring IHS to maximize opportunities to provide care to children outside the United States in need of specialized care.
Dr. Retik will work closely with senior administration to select a full-time director for IHS and help develop a long-term vision and strategic plan for the program. Additionally, he will oversee the clinical side of the international business, partner with physician chiefs to optimize business opportunities, and oversee coordination of the hospital foundations' overseas medical missions, academic activities and emergency relief efforts. Today, nearly 150 Children's physicians and other clinicians have an active presence in 68 countries.
Children's Transfusion Medicine staff recently underwent a six-day inspection by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), with no negative findings reported. Mary Ellen Cortizas, JD, administrative director of the Department of Laboratory Medicine, credits the exceptional showing to superb work done by the entire Transfusion Medicine team, particularly Lorna Riach, MT, quality assurance manager for Transfusion Medicine, who was the point person for the FDA's survey, and Maureen Beaton, transfusion service manager.
Visit our new science and innovation blog, Vector (vectorblog.org), which covers research and pediatric medicine at Children's and beyond. Reports and commentary discuss scientific advances, innovations in clinical practice, devices, drugs, diagnostics and surgery. In addition, it covers emerging trends in biomedicine, personal stories of discovery and innovation, biomedical ethics, translating discoveries to patient care, collaboration with industry and more.
Contributors include science writers, physicians, researchers, market experts and others inside and outside the hospital.
Online: Vector blog, facebook, twitter
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| Frances E. Jensen, MD |
Frances E. Jensen, MD, director of Translational Neuroscience and director of Epilepsy Research at Children's, will speak at the TEDMED Conference on "What are we learning about epilepsy in Children?" The conference is held October 26 to 29 in San Diego. Dr. Jensen has also been appointed president of the American Epilepsy Society. She'll serve a one-year term, beginning in 2012.
Children's has launched a new research funding program with the goal of making our Department of Patient Services the preeminent center for research and discovery in the fields of pediatric nursing, social work, pharmacy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, nutrition and Child Life. The new program will annually provide six aspiring investigators with the funding and institutional support they need to make their clinical and translational research a reality.
Children's recognizes that parents of admitted children should have a voice in asking for help if their child is in trouble and they feel the care team isn't responding to their needs appropriately. As of September 1, families are able to activate Children's new Family Activated Rapid Response team. When their child is admitted, parents are informed about this option, and each patient room has a poster with the emergency line and instructions.
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| Mary Ellen Avery, MD |
The life of Mary Ellen Avery, MD, has been defined by groundbreaking accomplishments: She was the first woman to be physician-in-chief at Children's and the first woman to chair a major clinical department at Harvard Medical School. She identified surfactant, a discovery that has saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of infants. Now, her story is being told in a new book by one of Dr. Avery's former teachers, based on Dr. Avery's diaries.
The book can be purchased directly from author Bojan Hamlin Jennings, PhD, for $19 ($15 plus $4 postage and packaging), by contacting her at bojan.jennings@gmail.com.
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