The COVID–19 vaccine for primary care physicians and their office staff is now available in different counties. Please find the link to sign up to get your vaccine, under COVID-19 Vaccines for Providers by County.

Our Chapter is still recruiting practices to participate in the AAP - sponsored Telehealth ECHO Project that begins January 21. With six sessions, these engaging discussions will be held every two weeks during the lunch hour (12 – 1 PM). For the first session, Mitzi Young, Physician Advocate at CMA and David T. Ford, VP of Health Information Technology at CMA will discuss successful practice workflow of a Telehealth Visit. If your practice is interested in taking part in this project, please see the complete schedule in the ECHO section below and sign-up. CME credit is offered for participation. If your practice is interested to take part in this project, please contact Tomas at [email protected] for details.

Member spotlight and Residency Corner is an interesting part of our newsletter. (Thank you to our Editorial Board for the great work). Nirmala Murthy, MD, FAAP, Pediatrician from Apple Valley, and Meghan Brombach, DO, Pediatric Resident from Los Angeles County + USC Medical Center program are featured this month. I hope to see more of you participate and make this part of the newsletter interesting, by submitting your personal narratives to be published.  Please read the submission guidelines below and contact [email protected] for more information.

The Advances in Pediatrics Symposium will take place virtually via Zoom on February 27, 2021, broadcast from Tamkin Auditorium at UCLA. Residents, please consider submitting your abstracts for consideration. We have a plenary session with Paul A. Offit, MD to address SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, and many other distinguished speakers on other topics. I encourage all of you to sign up for this symposium and benefit from the lectures. Registration opens January 15th on the symposium website. You will be receiving the brochure in the mail this coming week.

Kern Urgent Health Bulletin: COVID-19 VaccineAllocations and Distribution

Vaccinate Kern: COVID-19 Vaccine Information for Healthcare Providers

Scroll past “Safety”, then click to expand “Phase 1A, Tier 1 & Tier 2 Registration +” Go to page

SLO Google Pre-vaccination form

Same, to print and fax/email form

-- The days are getting shorter, but the work hours seem to be getting longer. What do you do to stay balanced during the busy winter respiratory season?

Name: Meghan Brombach

Year in residency: PGY3

Residency program: Los Angeles County + USC Medical Center

Medical school: A.T. Still University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona

Hometown: Olympia, WA

A recent meaningful moment in residency: As a 3rd year resident, I have recently been reflecting on the immense privilege it has been to partner with families and watch children grow in my continuity clinic. A mother recently asked if I could be her daughter’s pediatrician forever and that was one of the most meaningful moments I have had in residency. Continue reading ...

The AAP California Chapter 2 will accept abstracts on scholarly projects by pediatric and medicine-pediatric residents from CHLA, Harbor-UCLA, Kaiser LA, Loma Linda, UCLA, and USC.

Students from medical schools in the Southern California counties of Kern, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura are also invited to submit their abstracts!

The CATCH Call for Proposals will be open through January 27, 2021 at 3:00pm CST. Funds are available for pediatrician-led community-based programs that address a wide variety of child health issues.

If you have an idea to make a difference in your community, consider applying for a CATCH grant! The CATCH Program is a national initiative of the AAP that supports pediatricians to collaborate within their communities to advance the health of all children. Through the CATCH Program, pediatricians are empowered to identify promising solutions that work in their individual communities. The application can be found at https://www.aap.org/en-us/advocacy-and-policy/aap-health-initiatives/commpeds/catch/Pages/CATCH-Grants.aspx 

If you have questions, please reach out to your CATCH Chapter Facilitators Melissa Ruiz ([email protected]) or Christine Thang ([email protected]), or staff at [email protected].

Thank you for what you do on behalf of children!

The first Telehealth ECHO session is on January 21 at Noon.

Will you join us?

Begins January 21, 2021

1-Hour lunch sessions every 2 weeks

Session 1(Jan 21): Telehealth 101 During COVID (Successful visit/Practice Workflow)

Session 2 (Feb 4): Telehealth 102. (Legal/Coding/Regulations)

Session 3 (Feb 18): Telehealth Platforms/Technical difficulties

Session 4 (March 4): Telehealth for Preventive Care

Session 5 (March 18): Social/Cultural Considerations

Session 6 (April 1): Telehealth After COVID-19

The Immigrant Youth Task Force (IYTF) at UCLA and the American Academy of Pediatrics California Chapter 2 (AAP-CA2) invite you to visit The Los Angeles County Immigrant Youth Resource Toolkit, a website consolidating community resources in the greater LA area for immigrant youth and families. Our goal is to help professionals from all disciplines address the needs of their immigrant youth patients/clients with regards to health care, legal services, education, social services, and more. As our toolkit continues to evolve, we encourage you to explore and use it in your practice going forward.

The Landon Pediatric Foundation received a grant from ACEs Aware to provide supplemental training to providers in Ventura County (and neighboring counties). Through this funding, the ACEs Aware Ventura County training initiative was launched in partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics- Chapter 2, First 5 Ventura County (Help Me Grow Ventura County), and the Ventura County Health Care Agency... Read more >>>

Learn about the 3-Tiered Medi-Cal Provider Training Reward System, here

Learn about the implementation steps, here

Reach Out and Read works directly with pediatric providers to share the lifelong benefits that result from families reading aloud to their children every day. Through Reach Out and Read, pediatric teams can provide new, age- and language-appropriate books and share literacy advice with children and parents at each well-child visit. Contact our Reach Out and Read Coordinator at [email protected] or 909-709-1441.

Use this link to select us as your charitable organization at AmazonSmile. Then for every eligible purchase you make at AmazonSmile, the AmazonSmile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the purchase price to us.

CHOC Children’s Virtual Pediatric Lecture Series provides online CME lectures at no cost. All lectures are at 12:30 PM. Click the links to register.

January 14: Minimally Invasive Surgery for Craniosynostosis

February 25: Pediatric Orthopaedics: Buckle Fractures, Osteosarcoma and Some Things in Between

Begins January 21, 2021

1-Hour lunch sessions every 2 weeks

Session 1: Telehealth 101 During COVID (Successful visit/Practice Workflow)

Following sessions: 2/4, 2/18, 3/4, 3/18, 4/1

First 5 LA and the American Academy of Pediatrics California Chapter 2 (AAP-CA2) are conducting provider engagement/Peer-to-peer learning sessions to promote the ACEs Aware initiative among the Medi-Cal provider community in Los Angeles County.

February 11 - Childhood Adversity, Health Systems Change, and the Future of Trauma-Informed Pediatric Practice

March 18 - After screening: Building ACEs Response Interventions and Overcoming Barriers to Referrals.

April 22 - Burnout prevention/Multigenerational trauma

Whether you're a new graduate, or a practicing pediatrician looking for new opportunities, this Virtual event is for you!

Paul A. Offit, MD

Registration opens January 15^th

Visit https://aapca2.org/2021symposium

Signing up your entire practice (clinical and non-clinical staff) qualifies for a 20% discount on Chapter membership dues. Contact us for details.

Chapter committees are great opportunities to get involved in areas that interest you the most. Furthermore, if you are a Fellow member (FAAP), local involvement could position you for leadership opportunities at National AAP. To learn more about our various Committees and Sections, and to sign up, please visit aapca2.org/committees.

New: ADVOCACY

Be the voice in your County. Share local issues that need to be addressed with grassroots efforts.

New: CLIMATE CHANGE

Join discussions on what pediatricians can do to address climate change in our region.

New: MEDIA and COMMUNICATIONS

Do you have an interest in media and communications? Would you like to learn how to structure sound bytes when speaking with the media? Or perhaps how to be a more effective Tweetrician? .

Engage in the process of local ordinances implementing strict tobacco control. Learn about speaking opportunities at schools to inform/educate students and parents.