This Month In Pediatrics

December 2024

Children's Health

Are Melatonin Supplements Safe for Children?

With melatonin supplements becoming increasingly popular as a way to support sleep, Dr. Graw-Panzer breaks down what they are, how they work, and if they are safe to give to children. Read more here!

New York State Mandated Reporters Must Complete Child Abuse Training by April 1, 2025

New York State professions on the Office of Child and Family Services list of mandated reporters—including “physicians, surgeons, residents, and interns”— must complete updated training related to child abuse by April 1, 2025. The revised training includes strategies to reduce implicit bias and recognize signs of abuse while interacting virtually. Please see LRB-17 for more details.

Appointments & Promotions

The Department of Pediatrics is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Lisa Giulino-Roth to Professor of Pediatrics in Medicine, and Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in the Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, effective December 1, 2024. We are delighted about Dr. Roth’s accomplishments and promotion to Professor and look forward to her future achievements at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Dr. Jimin Lee has been appointed the Nanette Laitman Clinical Scholar in Healthcare Policy and Research/Quality of Care Research effective January 1, 2025 through December 31, 2027. Her appointment recognizes her significant scholarly work in assessing post-discharge challenges faced by caregivers of children with medical complexity.

New Faculty

Mollie Freedman-Weiss, MD

Division of Pediatric Surgery & Pediatric Trauma

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Education

2024 Residency Matches! Congrats Everyone!

Samantha Bruno – Pediatric Emergency Medicine – Seattle Children’s Hospital

Jaime Perez Lizardi – Pediatric Emergency Medicine – Jacobi Medical Center

Brienne Lubor - NICU – Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Matthew Tam - Neonatology - Mount Sinai

Kathleen Fan - Neonatology – Yale School of Medicine

Joanna Lee - Sleep Medicine – Baylor College of Medicine

Christopher Mazzeo – Pediatric Intensive Care – Cohen Children’s at Northwell

Dianna Mejia - Pediatric Intensive Care – Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital

Richard Piszczatowski – Hematology/Oncology – New York Presbyterian/Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Stephanie Trimboli – Infectious Diseases – Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University

Emily Scharf - Endocrinology - Children's National Hospital

Alim Esemenli – Gastroenterology – Komansky Children’s Hospital at New York Presbyterian

Jacob Shamash (2024 Graduate) - PEM - Dupont

Haley Griffin (2023 Graduate) - PEM - NYU

Natasha Dilwali (2022 Graduate) Hepatology - Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital

Research

Pediatric Fellows' Research in Progress takes place on the 4th Thursday of each month. Third and second year fellows present their ongoing academic scholarship work. This month's presenters were:

Catalina Acosta, MD (3rd Year Pulmonology Fellow)

Topic: Untargeted Metabolomic Profiling Highlights Metabolic Dysregulations in Urban Children with Obesity-Related Asthma: Insights from a New York City Cohort

Chelsea Hartman, MD (3rd Year Neonatology Fellow)

Topic: Decreasing Neonatal Hypothermia in the Delivery Room in the Low Resource Setting: A Quality Improvement (QI) Initiative

According to a study co-led by former faculty member, Dr. Anjali Rajadhyaksha in collaboration with Dr. Francis Lee, Chair of Psychiatry and The Center for Youth Mental Health at NewYork-Presbyterian, Increasing levels of endocannabinoids in the body may prevent the highly addictive nature of opioids without interfering with drugs' ability to relieve pain. Read full article here!

Dr. David Lyden's new study found that specially packaged DNA secreted by tumor cells can trigger an immune response that inhibits the metastatic spread of the tumor to the liver. Read full article here!

Advocacy

Year-End Advocacy: Opportunities to Support Our Pediatrics Community

As the year comes to a close, the Department of Pediatrics is reflecting on the strides we’ve made in advocacy and looking ahead to opportunities to deepen our impact. Our department’s commitment to championing children’s health—both in clinical care and through robust advocacy efforts—remains at the heart of everything we do. As we prepare for 2025, we invite you to join us in several key initiatives to ensure that every child in our community has the opportunity to thrive.

Policy Advocacy: Elevating Children’s Health on the Agenda

With the new year bringing a new administration, there is no better time to amplify pediatric voices in policymaking as we consider vaccine efficacy, Medicaid, and funding children’s health research.

Advocacy takes many forms—giving your time, making a financial contribution, or simply raising awareness. As we approach the end of the year, we invite you to reflect on how you can play a part in advancing health equity for children.

Awards & Honors

Dr. Sallie Permar received a $20.4M grant from the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases for a project entitled Immunologic strategies to prevent congenital cytomegalovirus transmission and disease in rhesus monkeys.”

Dr. Juan Pascal received a $6.3M grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders & Stroke for a project entitled Brain glucose deficiency: mechanisms and modulation.

The HT-3 QPS team led by Dr. Kalliope Tsirilakis was featured in the 2024 Solutions for Patient Safety (SPS) SHINE report as a top performing hospital for our work in Proactive Ambulatory Safety. The annual SPS Sharing Hospitals’ Innovations for Network Engagement (SHINE) Report documents best practices by profiling a sample of hospitals who have demonstrated great success in a particular pediatric HAC improvement, Employee Staff Safety, culture deliverables, and/or and hospitals that have achieved a rate of statistical significance.

Publications

Dr. Omar Abdul-Rahman

Maternal and paternal risk factors associated with diagnoses within the continuum of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders in the USA: Proximal and distal influences

Dr. Erika Abramson

Importance of medical home domains on emergency visits using a cross-sectional national survey of US children

Dr. Jennifer Bassetti

Further delineation of the SCAF4-associated neurodevelopmental disorder

Drs. Ria Goswami, Genevieve Fouda & Sallie Permar

A novel HIV triple broadly neutralizing antibody (bNAb) combination-based passive immunization of infant rhesus macaques achieves durable protective plasma neutralization levels and mediates anti-viral effector functions

Dr. Zachary Grinspan

A Multicenter Retrospective Observational Cohort Study of Seizure Freedom before Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome (the "Gap"). Opportunities for Prevention

Dr. Nicole Kucine

Clinical characteristics, treatment, and outcomes of provoked acute cerebral sinovenous thrombosis in patients <21 years old: findings from the Kids-DOTT Multinational Trial

Dr. David Lyden

Unique structural configuration of EV-DNA primes Kupffer cell-mediated antitumor immunity to prevent metastatic progression

Dr. Sujit Sheth

Real-world experience with iron chelation therapy in transfusion-dependent thalassemia: impact of the oral chelators' era

Click here to view publications by faculty members published in the last 30 days!

Announcements

Dr. Nena Osorio was invited to participate at The Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care team in the second cohort of Learning Community to support children’s hospitals in advancing PFAC Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). The PFAC DEI Learning Community will provide a framework for advancing PFAC DEI along with guidance, tools, education, and technical assistance to help hospitals make progress on opportunities to improve PFAC DEI.

Dr. Nicole Kucine co-chaired the scientific session entitled “Molecular Characterization of Lymphomas in Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults” at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting 2024. She also presented on “The State of CML in Children, Adolescents, & Young Adults” at the 19^th annual Post-ASH CML & MPN Workshop on December 10, 2024.

Dr. TJ Jirasevijinda co-authored two abstracts entitled, How to Develop Objective Structured Clinical Exam (OSCE) Stations to Address Intra- and Interprofessional Conflict Resolution Skills and Developing a Formative Assessment Tool for Research Project for Emergency Medicine Residents: Focusing on Content Validity that were accepted for oral presentations at the WFME World Conference 2025.

Emily Coppedge (Nurse Practitioner) presented at the ISPAD 2024 Oral Presentation Conference on Addressing Health Disparities in Pediatric Type 1 Diabetes Glycemic Outcomes. She also had a poster presentation at the T1D Exchange 2024 Conference for her project entitled, Diabetes Pediatric Annual Visits.

Dr. Michelle Loy discussed how to have a healthy holiday season and how to lessen holiday stress on Health Matters. Read more here!

Elizabeth Gunckle (Nurse Practitioner)

presented at the ISPAD 2024 Poster Presentation at Conference on Continuing Long-acting Insulin While Utilizing Hybrid Closed Loop (HCL) Insulin Pump Systems in Adolescents with Poorly Controlled Type 1 Diabetes – A Case Series. She also had a poster presentation at the T1D Exchange 2024 Conference for her project entitled Standardizing Inpatient Nursing Diabetes Education.

The following individual were selected to join the National Organization for Rare Disorders Centers of Excellence Program as members in various groups based on their passion and experience in the field:

Miriam Samstein – Newborn Screening Working Group

Lilian Cohen – Newborn Screening Working Group

Jennifer Bassetti – Medical Professional Education Working Group

Katie Bergstrom – Patient Education Working Group

Veronica Yamane – Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Working Group

Nanzeeba Ahmad – Telemedicine Working Group

Omar Abdul-Rahman – International Collaborations Working Group

Complimentary Hotel Stays

The department continues to offer complimentary hotel rooms based on availability and with approval of their Division Chiefs to faculty who are in need an overnight stay in the city due to inpatient clinical duties. Any requests, approved by your Division Chief, need to be sent to

PedsChairAdmin@med.cornell.edu one week in advance of the intended stay. If space is available (we have a limited number of rooms/month), you will be contacted with further details.

Upcoming Events

Seminar Series

Title: Perinatal Precision Medicine: Advancing the diagnosis and treatment of genetic disease prenatally

Speaker: Dr. Jennifer Cohen, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Medical Genetics, Duke University

Date: January 9, 2024

Time: 12-1PM

Location: Hybrid | Weill Greenberg 1305 York Ave

The State of the Department

Sallie R. Permar, MD, PhD

Chair, Department of PediatricsNancy C. Paduano Professor in Pediatrics, Weill Cornell Medicine

Professor of Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis, Weill Cornell Graduate School

Pediatrician-in-Chief, NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center

Date: January 21, 2025

Time: 12-1pm

Location: Hybrid | Uris Auditorium | Zoom Link

Shout Outs

A thank-you note from a patient to the Peds ED team! Their 8-year-old lost the top of his finger in a slammed door on Thanksgiving night. The personnel at Peds ER was outstanding. All of the team members, including the doctors, nurses, and patient services, were kind, professional, and patient.

Shout out to the Cardiology nurses, Emily Sullivan and Shannon Kelly, for all of their support and help in the Pediatric Cardiology division!

Share your appreciation for colleagues by submitting a shout-out for inclusion in the department newsletter here!