2019 - March Edition
Alice Kuo, MD, PhD, MBA, FAAP   President, AAP-CA2    2018 - 2020 
We had a very successful Annual Symposium last weekend! Thanks to the 130 members who came out in the rain to learn more about adolescent mental health, adverse childhood experiences, immigrant child health, pediatric office emergencies, Zika virus updates, and updates on pertussis and tuberculosis. Thanks also to the trainees who presented their work-their presence was both scholarly and heartwarming to see that the future of pediatrics is in good hands!
 
Some highlights of the conference-Dr. Diana Tanaka from Children's Hospital Los Angeles educated attendees about the latest clinical and research findings of marijuana and what to be on the lookout for. Dr. Julie Linton from South Carolina was our featured keynote speaker and shared her heartbreaking accounts of visiting the detention centers where children are being held. (Of note, Dr. Linton testified in Congress this past week on behalf of the entire AAP - you can read a transcript of her testimony here). Dr. Solomon Behar from Miller Children's Hospital gave a great talk on office emergencies and did it in a way that was fun and light-hearted. Dr. Karin Nielsen from UCLA gave our annual S. Michael Marcy, MD lecture and spoke on Zika virus transmission and the neurodevelopmental effects on infants.
 
We also had two leaders from our local department of public health. Dr. Frank Pratt gave an update on the immunization schedule (basically, there are no changes) and also discussed the current pertussis outbreak with over 70 confirmed cases in 12 schools in the West Los Angeles area. And Dr. Julie Higashi wrapped up the entire Symposium with an overview of tuberculosis in children and an inspirational goal to eradicate tuberculosis in Los Angeles in the next 15 years.
 
I talked about adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and the investment in screening for ACEs in Governor Newsom's budget, as well as ACEs being a focus for our first state Surgeon General, Nadine Burke Harris. Given the interest from my talk and our own local expertise, mainly from Kaiser, we have already decided that ACEs will be featured at next year's Symposium and are planning to invite Dr. Burke Harris to be our keynote speaker. Please save the date for next year's Symposium: Saturday, March 7, 2020. We are also planning to start a chapter committee on ACEs in the next few months; please contact Tomas if you are interested in joining.
 
Dr. Pratt alluded to a possible LA County Department of Public Health (DPH) recommendation to give pertussis boosters to those children with waning immunity during this outbreak. This would include children age 7-10 years, and adolescents over the age of 14 years. During this past week, I have communicated with leadership in DPH to urge them to do so, as well as connected them with our national AAP Committee on Infectious Diseases (COID) who oversee the writing of the Red Book. The recommendation from the Red Book during a pertussis outbreak (p. 624) is that the local health department is able to make recommendations for additional vaccinations. I also spoke with Dr. Jim Cherry from UCLA, who is recognized as a world-wide expert on pertussis, and he also is encouraging the health department to make the recommendation. While pertussis is "not that bad" and treatable in children and adolescents, the rationale behind population control is protect the infants, in whom pertussis can be a deadly condition. This is the same rationale behind why pregnant women and family members who come in frequent contact with infants need to be vaccinated. Stay tuned in the next few weeks about possible action related to this current pertussis outbreak-we will definitely send out a special education newsletter if that happens.
 
With the Annual Symposium aside, we are turning to our next major event, which is our community Town Hall at El Camino College in Torrance on Thursday, March 21, on Addressing Teenage Vaping. You may have seen last month's CDC report on the epidemic-level increases in teenage vaping over the last year (a copy of the report is here). Members of DPH, the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) and local government leaders, along with parents and teens themselves, will be present. Dr. Tony Kuo will be presenting an overview of the issue from the perspective of public health. A member of the Hermosa Beach City Council will describe how and why their city passed the ordinance to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products altogether. Mark Hernandez LACOE will explain what schools are doing to combat this epidemic. I will be giving an overview of the clinical impact and treatment of nicotine addiction to teenage brains based on last month's AAP policy statement on e-cigarettes (a copy can be found here). And we will end with a Q & A, which we expect will be largely with parents and teens. Please come and support us if you can!
 
For advocacy on teenage vaping, I will be sending a letter to each of the LA County Supervisors urging them to vote to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products in all of LA County and visiting them personally to discuss the issue. For our members who live in LA County, I encourage you to contact your Supervisor through email, fax, phone call or personal visit to do the same. Resources to help you advocate can be found on our website here.
 
This week at the Annual Leadership Forum (ALF), our chapter leaders will be going to the national AAP headquarters in Itasca, Illinois to vote on the top priorities the Academy will be working on in the next year. I will provide highlights from the meeting in next month's newsletter. Our chapter is a finalist (along with the states of Ohio and North Carolina) for the Outstanding Chapter Award (among very large chapters). We have been finalists for the last several years; maybe this year will be the year we win the award!
 
Please check out the rest of our newsletter for information on our Town Hall meetings and other CME opportunities, ways to get Maintenance of Certification (MOC) points with Quality Improvement (QI) projects, and statewide advocacy priorities that the AAP is working on behalf of children.
 
Thanks for all that you do on behalf of children in our communities!
 
Alice Kuo, MD, PhD, MBA, FAAP
Chapter President
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Call  To Action!
 
Addressing the Threat of Vaping Products/E-Cigarettes  
Adolescent Vaping is a growing problem, and the rates are alarming and reaching epidemic proportions. A number of strategies have emerged to address this issue both at the individual level and in communities.  
 
The County of Los Angeles Board of Supervisors will soon vote on an ordinance to amend County Code, Title 22 - Planning and Zoning, that will result in tobacco shops being prohibited in residential zones, within a certain distance of residential zones and within a certain distance from sensitive uses whose primary purpose is to serve children, such as elementary, middle and high schools, parks and youth centers.  
 
We need your support! 
  1. Call to Action! Call your District Supervisor.
  2. Come learn about strategies to combat adolescent Vaping in your community. Attend the Community Town Hall in Torrance on March 21.
 
 
Please visit http://aapca2.org/vaping for more information.
Recent Events

February 6 - Dinner Lecture in Woodland Hills     
AAP-CA2 Member-At-Large Ken Saul, MD, FAAP hosted a dinner/lecture at Maggiano's of Woodland Hills Guest speaker Anup Patel, MD - Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology, CHOC spoke on Food Allergies. This event was sponsored by Mead Johnson.  
 
 
     
PEARLS
  • EoE is predominant in males (3:1). The degree of hydrolysis of cow's milk protein determines the allergenic response.
  • Cow's milk allergy patients benefit from extensively hydrolyzed formula and in severe cases from amino acid formula. These formulas are virtually devoid of large allergenic protein fragments, however they contain potentially beneficial immune-supporting peptides.
 
Potential Pathophysiology of Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE)
  1. Intraluminal allergen exposure (Predominantly food allergens).
  2. Mucosal production of eosinophilic chemoattractants
  3. Influx of eosinophils into the esophageal epithelium (Mediated by type 2 helper T Cells). 
  4. Esophageal dysfunction.  

February 27-28 - CDC in Atlanta, GA     
 
Our Chapter was selected by the American Academy of Pediatrics to participate in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-funded project entitled the Provider Immunization Information Systems (IIS) Participation Project. The purpose of this project is to improve provider participation in state or jurisdictional IIS (The IIS in California is named CAIR2).
 
Seven IIS have been selected to receive resources, technical assistance and mentoring, as part of forming a Community of Practice (CoP): Alabama, California (Represented by Chapters 2 and 3, as well as CAIR2), Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico, and Tennessee. Several additional IIS have been identified to serve as mentors: Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, New York City and North Dakota.  
The CoP began with an in-person meeting of the Provider IIS Participation (PIP) in Atlanta, Georgia on February 27-28 at CDC Headquarters. A common barrier across several states is the lack of interoperability with small practice electronic health records, as interface design and implementation can be extremely costly. For California (and other states) documentation into the Registry is not mandated.  In perspective, on February 28, the Maryland House of Delegates passed the third reading of HB316 with 139 - 0 votes. The bill reads: " Requiring a health care provider who administers a vaccine or the agent of the health care provider in the State to report all vaccines administered to the Maryland immunization registry, ImmuNet".
 
During the two days at the CDC, Scientific Technologies Corporation gathered input from all states involved. In the months ahead, we will be sharing the proposed strategies that will facilitate enrollment, training, interoperability, and documentation into our immunization registry (CAIR2) with the goal of having every child's immunization documented into a central registry.

  March 2, 2019 - Sheraton Universal Hotel

(Top Row) Alice Kuo, MD, PhD, MBA, FAAP, FACP. (2nd Row, from left) Franklin Pratt, MD, MPHTM, FACEP; Daniel Cho, MD and Julie M. Linton, MD, FAAP. (3rd Row, from left) Diane Tanaka, MD and Solomon Behar, MD, FACEP, FAAP. (Bottom Row, from left) Paula Whiteman, MD, FACEP, FAAP and Julie Higashi, MD, PhD.
 
The 30th Annual Advances in Pediatrics Symposium at the Sheraton Universal Hotel was a great success. This year we had 130 attendees - the most we've had in five years! We would like to thank the attendees for their support and trust in our conference, our extraordinary speakers, poster presenters, exhibitors, AudioDigest, volunteers, and First 5 LA for being a strong supporting sponsor for the second year in a row.
 
This year's topics were Mindfulness for Clinicians, Adolescent Depression, Adverse Childhood Experiences, Pediatric Emergencies, Advocacy for the Immigrant Child, Zika Virus, Tuberculosis Update and Vaccine Preventable Diseases.   
     
During the Lunch Business Meeting, Dr. Alice Kuo provided an overview of our current initiatives.  These include developing stronger partnerships with the LA County Department of Public Health and First 5 in each of our 7 counties, Immigrant Health, Teenage VapingFirst 5/Help Me Grow, and Violence Prevention.
             
   
Please contact us if there is anything in which you would like to be involved. Remember to save the date and attend (if possible) the Community T own Hall in Torrance:
Addressing Teenage Vaping, on March 21. See the Flyer here for details and RSVP information.  

S. Michael Marcy, MD Memorial Lecture
Mrs. Joan Marcy, with Dr. Karin Nielsen
In 2014, the medical community lost a brilliant professional, and a friend. Dr. S. Mich ael Marcy was a member of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. A Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at both USC and UCLA, Dr. Marcy had the distinction of having served actively in the education and research activities at the 4 major teaching programs in Los Angeles.
Now in its fifth consecutive year, the AAP-CA2 S. Michael Marcy MD, Memorial Lecture brings a world-renowned infectious disease physician to speak on the latest advances of their field. This year we had Karin Nielsen, MD presenting on Zika Virus.
 
 
AAP-CA2 Member-At-Large Cindy Baker, MD, FAAP introducing the S. Michael Marcy, MD Memorial Lecture.  
Karin Nielsen, MD presenting an update on Zika Virus.  


Pediatric Trainees Presentation Program  
 
Every year, AAP-CA2 accepts 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 participate. Abstracts may be on original research, quality improvement, clinical cases, or any other scholarly project conducted during training. 
 
While the research awards program had been running for over a decade, Christine Thang, MD had the vision in 2017 to incorporate it into our annual symposium. We thank the Pediatric Trainees Presentation Program Chairs Lisa Gantz, MD (Mattel Children's Hospital, University of California Los Angeles), and Alexa Manrriquez (Keck School of Medicine of USC) for putting this program together. Thank you also to our Board of Reviewers: Alexandra Mihalek, MD ( Children's Hospital Los Angeles) , Melissa Ruiz, MD, FAAP (AAP-CA2 Early Career Physicians), and
Diana Chernikova, MD, PhD (Harbor-UCLA Medical Center).  
 
You may read the selected abstracts, here. 
 
Poster Presentation Finalists (From left) Theresa Tran, MD; Gabriela Moriel, MD; Meghana Karmarkar, MD; and Olivia Wu, receiving their awards for Outstanding scholarly abstract and poster presentation at the 2019 AAP-CA2 Advances in Pediatrics Symposium.
Lisa Gantz, MD presents Daniel Cho, MD with the Oral Presentation Finalist Award for Outstanding scholarly abstract and oral presentation at the 2019 AAP-CA2 Advances in Pediatrics Symposium.

AAP-CA2 Immediate Past President Edward Curry, MD, FAAP presented a Certificate of Recognition to Sophia Torices for her enthusiastic performance in the "We Are The AAP California Chapter 2" video  Sophia is now nine years old, an avid reader, and enjoys singing. 
 
 
 Conference Pearls  
 
We have compiled a selection of conference pearls provided by each speaker and are making them available to our members. Please click the image below to access the 30th Annual Advances in Pediatrics Symposium PEARLS.
   
CME Certificates and MOC Part 2 Credit: Specific instructions for CME and MOC were emailed yesterday (Saturday, March 10 at 11 AM). If you attended the conference, be sure to review the email for action items.
 
In The News

Interview on CNN's HLN
 
AAP-CA2 Member-At-Large Cori Cross, MD, FAAP was interviewed by CNN's Headline News (HLN) on the topic of "kids' time spent playing video games and its consequences". Watch the segment below.    
 
 



12-year-old 'hero' saves life of girl 1,000 miles away
 
A 12-year-old boy from Pittsburgh is being applauded for his quick thinking and perceptive nature after he noticed a friend, who lives in Texas, was starting to act differently on Snapchat.  
 
Gabe Rongier had been chatting with his friend, who he met on the social media app through a mutual friend, when he noticed a drastic change in the girl's emotions. The girl shared a disturbing post that read she "wouldn't be here tomorrow."
 
Gabe, not knowing how to alert the authorities in Texas about the girl possibly being a danger to herself, called the suicide hotline. Read the Full Story Here  

Upcoming AAP-CA2 Events
March 21, 2019 in Torrance - Town Hall   
     
The Southern California Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP-CA 2) invites you to El Camino College on March 21, 2019 at 3 PM for a community-wide Town Hall addressing Flavored Liquid Vaping Products/E-Cigarettes use in youth.  This event is in co-partnership with the County of Los Angeles Public Health Tobacco Control and Prevention Department - Division of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention. This event is open to everyone! 
 
Addressing Teenage Vaping
This event is open to everyone!   
   
Learn how you can help before this event. Visit our website! http://aapca2.org/vaping 

Date: 3/21/2019
Time: 3PM to 5 PM 
Location: El Camino College
16007 Crenshaw Blvd, Torrance, CA 90506 
Click to RSVP for this event  
March 21, 2019 in Hesperia - Town Hall / Dinner 
   
Damodara Rajasekhar, MD, FAAP Vice President, AAP-CA2 
Join AAP-CA2 Vice President Damodara Rajasekhar, MD, FAAP for a Town Hall in the High Desert on March 21, 2019.  
 
AAP High Desert Area Townhall meeting    
 
Topic #1: "Evaluation and Management of Dysmorphic Infant"
Speaker: Robin Clark, MD - Genetics Specialist, LLUMC 
 
Topic #2: AAP, CMA, SBCMS Updates.
Speaker: Damodara Rajasekhar, MD, FAAP
Vice President, AAP-CA2  
President, San Bernardino County Medical Society  
 
Date: 3/21/2019
Time: 6:30 PM
Location: Bangkok Cuisine
15800 Main Street, Unit 200, Hesperia, CA 92345
Tel: 760-998-2898
 
RSVP directly to Dr. Rajasekhar at [email protected]  
   
Brian Santacrose, MD, FAAP
Santa Barbara Area Rep. 
 
March 28, 2019 in Santa Barbara - Dinner/Lecture
 
 
Please join AAP-CA2 Santa Barbara Area Representative Brian Santacrose, MD, FAAP for a lecture/Town Hall on March 28, 2019.
 
 
 
Pfizer Cordially Invites You to Attend
An Informational Program
Featuring
 
MYRON LIEBHABER, MD
 
An Update on a Steroid-Free Topical Option for Mild to Moderate Atopic Dermatitis  
in Patients 2 Years and Older  
 
Thursday, Mar 28, 2019 at 6:30 PM
 
  Wine Cask
813 Anacapa St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101  
Hosted by Bradley McMahon 
 
Please RSVP to your Pfizer Representative
Bradley McMahon: (619) 208-1766, [email protected]
 
Kindly provide your full name, degree, specialty, address including State, and email address when registering so that you can be confirmed.  
Please also provide the Meeting ID# INT-0042968 when you RSVP.  
Other Events  -  Community Partners
March 19, 2019 in Santa Monica
 
The Los Angeles Pediatric Society (LAPS) will hold its 2019 S. Michael Marcy Memorial Lecture at the Parmelee Spring Meeting on March 19 at Providence Saint John's Health Center, in Santa Monica.  
 
 
Christopher Harris, MD, FAAP and Alan Blum, MD will discuss the timely topics of Vaping & E-Cigs: WHAT? HOW? WHO? and E-cigarettes in Context: A Threat to Health or a Fear of Missing Out?
For more details, please Click Here 

April 26, 2019 in Pomona
San Gabriel/Pomona Regional Center

April 26, 2019 in Santa Barbara
2nd annual Child Abuse Symposium at UCSB

 



For more details...

to visit the Event Page



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