Paula J. Whiteman, MD, FACEP, FAAP
President, AAP-CA2

Welcome to the February 2015 edition

of our monthly Newsletter.

Exciting news! We have our first chapter video, "We Are The AAP-CA Chapter 2". Each March at the AAP Annual Leadership Forum, there is a competition for the top 5 chapter videos. Wish us luck with this contest! Watch Video

Flu season is still upon us and has lead to record-breaking volumes at Emergency Departments throughout our chapter. Please scroll below to our article by Benjamin Schwartz, MD, Deputy Director, Acute Communicable Disease Control Program, LA County Department of Public Health, on the influenza vaccine and how to communicate with your patient's parents about this year's vaccine, when we have a drifted strain, with concerns and uncertainty about effectiveness.

There has been a recent measles outbreak. Having trained during the measles epidemic in New York during the early 1990's, I personally cared for many patients with measles ranging from the acute disease to the devastating condition of post measles encephalitis. Patients with measles look and feel miserable. Please consider using this opportunity to encourage vaccination among your under-immunized patients. The LACDPH asked us to share this important health update: Measles Outbreak in Los Angeles County Associated with Disneyland Parks.

We have an article by Dr. Fae Majlessipour, MD, Director, Pediatric Hematology-Oncology Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute, Cedars Sinai Medical Center; Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, David Geffen School of Medicine

at UCLA. Choosing Wisely� is an initiative by the ABIM Foundation to promote conversations between patients and physicians regarding evidence-based recommendations. Her article focuses on the Choosing Wisely� recommendations for the care of the pediatric patient with regards to hematology.

Registration will soon be opening with discounted early bird savings well below last year's pricing!! As you know, we have lined up an exceptional group of speakers for our 26th Annual Southern California Postgraduate Pediatric Conference, "Advances in Pediatrics" to be held at the Universal Sheraton in Universal City, CA on Saturday, April 25, 2015. Our conference will feature the S. Michael Marcy Memorial Lecture. Please mark your calendars and plan on attending. This year's theme will mainly be on pediatric emergencies; however, there will also be a lecture on the hot topic of the effects of marijuana on the developing brain. Please look for the brochure in your inbox. Early bird savings will be for registrations during the month of February.

Each year the national AAP has a legislative conference from April 12-14 in Washington, D. C. Having attended this conference in the past, I can say that this is very hands-on experience, geared for those wishing to learn more about advocacy, with time allotted to meet personally with your house of representative and senatorial staff. This year, national is offering free registration to several lucky members. Follow this link to learn more about this conference, and access the scholarship application here.

AAP-CA2 Vice President and Chair of the High School Scholarships Committee, Dr. Edward Curry, presents the 2014 Medicine - Biological Sciences Scholarship Award to Elaine Cheung during the June 2014 Board of Directors meeting.

We just heard back from one of our high school scholarship recipients, Elaine Cheung, who recently completed her first quarter at UCLA as a Neuroscience Major. She thanked the AAP-CA2 for awarding her the scholarship to help further her education. She hopes to attend medical school after earning her bachelor's degree.

We would like to thank Dr. Touraj Shafai and Dr. Alvin Miller for their generous donations to the S. Michael Marcy Memorial Fund. Those wishing to contribute in his honor may send a check made out to: AAP-CA Chapter 2 specifying "S. Michael Marcy Memorial Fund" in the memo line, and mail it to:

American Academy of Pediatrics, CA Chapter 2

P.O. Box 94127

Pasadena, CA 91109

Please feel free to get involved locally by contacting our chapter 2 executive director.

Last, but not least, please scroll down for information about our upcoming Town Hall Meeting.

As always, I welcome your comments and suggestions.

Sincerely,

Paula Whiteman, MD, FACEP, FAAP

President, AAP-CA2

Benjamin Schwartz, MD

Preventing Influenza in Children: Vaccination in the Context of Uncertainty

Benjamin Schwartz, M.D.

"He who watches the wind will not sow and he who looks at the clouds will not reap" (Ecclesiastes 11:4)

While during an average year, the weather may be ideal, farmers know that some years are far from the average - sometimes it rains too much or too little, or is too cold or too hot - yet every year farmers plant, full of hope, and whether the yield is better or worse, they plant again next year. A similar observation might be made for pediatricians and prevention of influenza. For the large majority of years, there is a good match between the virus strains in the vaccine and what circulates in the community but some years there is not. For most years, vaccine effectiveness data, available toward the middle or end of the influenza season, show good protection but some years they do not. Being unable to predict the influenza season with any more certainty than the farmer can predict the weather, the clinician pondering vaccination would do well to follow Nike's less poetic synopsis of Ecclesiastes - "Just do it." Read more Read brief Bio

Fataneh (Fae) Majlessipour, MD,

The Impact of "Choosing Wisely Campaign" on the Care of Pediatric Patients

Fataneh (Fae) Majlessipour, M.D.

Since its launch in April 2012, the Choosing Wisely Campaign has come a long way. Initially, a project of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Foundation, to "encourage physician-patient conversations about overuse and misuse of tests and procedures to help make smart choices", this campaign now has gathered the support of more than 60 medical specialty societies. A list of more than 250 tests and procedures that physicians and patients should discuss before ordering has been generated.Moreover, Consumer Reports and other Non-Profit consumer advocacy groups have joined the campaign and have created consumer educational materials (i.e., brochures and videos), to spread information and to help patients and their families in discussing appropriate and necessary treatment with their providers and avoiding unnecessary tests and procedures. Read more. Read Bio.

AAP-CA2 Will Kick-Off Quality Improvement Project

Congratulations to the practices that joined AAP-CA2 in the AAP Chapter Quality Network Asthma Phase 4 Project. The first Learning Session will take place on February 7, 2015. This eight-hour event will be lead by the National AAP, and our own CQN4 teams.

The goal of this project is to systematically change physician care practices in accordance with the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute's National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (NHLBI/NAEPP) asthma guidelines.

Participants will receive 25 points of Maintenance of Certification Part 4 (MOC) credit Performance in Practice, and 20 credits of Performance Improvement Continuing Medical Education (PI CME)

ADVOCACY: Online Immunization Petition

Many of our chapter members have asked that we provide this online petition information for those interested in advocacy in support of immunizations. The petition, which is on MoveOn.Org, will be presented to The California State House, The California State Senate, and Governor Jerry Brown, and states: "We are petitioning the California State Government to make vaccines mandatory for all K-12 California school children, except for those with specific medical conditions. We would also require all California K-12 schools to publish the current percentage vaccinated rate of all enrolled students. This would eliminate "Personal Belief Exemptions," which are used to opt out of vaccines for non-medical reasons." Please follow this link if you wish to add your name. View Petition

Next Town Hall Meeting

Ken Saul, MD, FAAP AAP-CA2 Member-At-Large

An evening with AAP-CA2 Member-at-Large, Ken Saul, MD, FAAP

Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - Maggiano's, in Woodland Hills

Featured Speaker: Gary Goodman, M.D.

Director PICU, Children's Hospital of Orange County

Click to print flyer Click to RSVP

LA - HPAC Symposium at CHLA

Children's Health in Los Angeles

4th Annual Symposium

Caring for Children with Special Health Care Needs (CSHCN): Updates for 2015

Friday, February 20, 2015

9:30 AM - 2:30 PM

CME will be available

Registration is free of charge. Lunch provided.
To RSVP please contact Kelly Clancy at kclancy@chla.usc.edu Click to See/Print Flyer

Save The Date!

April 25, 2015

AAP-CA Chapter 2 Presents:

The 26th Annual Southern California

Postgraduate Pediatric Conference

Advances in Pediatrics

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Sheraton Universal Hotel

Universal City, CA

Registration opens soon!

Faculty

From Rady Children's Hospital San Diego, Department of Infectious Diseases will be Mark Sawyer, MD, FAAP. He is a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics and a Pediatric Infectious Disease specialist at the UCSD School of Medicine. Dr. Sawyer will give the inaugural S. Michael Marcy Memorial Lecture, entitled: Emerging Infections: The Bugs Are One Step Ahead And They Are Moving. As Dr. Sawyer is on the RedBook Committee, he will also speak on the Red Book: What You Must Read In The New Edition! For more about Dr. Sawyer, please READ MORE

Elizabeth R. Sowell, Ph.D. is Director of the Developmental Cognitive Neuroimaging Laboratory and Professor of Pediatrics, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California. She will be speaking on the impact of prenatal exposures, such as marijuana, on later brain development. This is a very important and timely topic as more and more states legalize marijuana. For more about Dr. Sowell, please READ MORE.

From Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Department of Emergency Medicine will be Marianne Gausche-Hill, MD, FACEP, FAAP. She is a Professor of Clinical Medicine and Pediatrics, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and Vice Chair and Chief of the Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine as well as the Director Pediatric Emergency Medicine and EMS Fellowships. Dr. Gausche-Hill will talk about how to prepare your office for pediatric emergencies and discuss challenging real-life cases that have presented to pediatric practices. For more about Dr. Gausche-Hill, please READ MORE.

From the CA Poison Control Center will be medical toxicologist, Cyrus Rangan M.D. FAAP FACMT. He will be speaking on the latest drugs of abuse children and adolescents may be getting into as well as challenging toxicologic cases. Dr. Rangan is the Director of the Bureau of Toxicology & Environmental Assessment at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. He is an attending and consulting Medical Toxicologist at Children's Hospital Los Angeles as well as a clinical instructor at the USC/Keck School of Medicine. For more about Dr. Rangan, please READ MORE.

From UCSF will be pediatric dermatologist Jeff Sugarman, M.D., Ph.D., FAAP, FAAD. Dr. Sugarman is an Associate Clinical Professor in Dermatology at UC San Francisco and in private practice as the Medical Director of Redwood Family Dermatology in Sonoma County, CA. He will be speaking on "Rashes that are potentially serious or life threatening and their mimickers " as well as "Dermatology potpourri: Unknowns and case-based pediatric dermatology". For more information about Dr. Sugarman, please READ MORE.

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