Dear CHOP Alumni Family,

For those of you who did not read my previous (aka, first) installment of this column, I want to begin with a reminder of our motto for the column, straight from Dr. Pat’s old files:

Keep … Tradition, Keep … in Mind, Keep … in Touch!

The motto is wonderful, and has the added benefit of organizing my thoughts and information. And so I begin:

Keep … Tradition: Once again, Dr. St. Geme and I hosted a CHOP alumni reception at this year’s PAS meeting in Baltimore. It was great fun to see so many alumni!

I also want to provide an update on a new CHOP tradition that you are welcome to participate in. This January, as our new year of clerkship students began their rotations, we launched “Dr. Pat’s Pics!” to help educate the next generation of physicians. Each week, clerkship students are sent a classic photograph of an interesting pediatric problem. Students present the photo and a short discussion of the problem, educating themselves, our residents, attendings, and others. For our inaugural session, we provided radiographic images of rickets and photos of a child with Duane syndrome. To participate, just email a quality photograph (with the appropriate consent) along with a 1- to 2-sentence description to me at christian@email.chop.edu, and we will add it to the Dr. Pat teaching library. I welcome your contributions.

As for Keep in Mind … The Alumni Organization is grateful for the great generosity of our faculty and graduates. The Alumni Giving Fund was established to provide valuable educational opportunities to our residents and fellows, and we continue to support the educational mission of the Hospital in a number of ways. Every gifts matters, and your support at any level will make an impact. You can visit www.chopalumni.org to make a contribution.

And finally, Keep ... in Touch! If you have any news about yourself or your CHOP friends, please share with me so that I can spread the word here. This issue, I would like to congratulate 3 former CHOP alumni on being appointed to important and exciting leadership positions:

Danielle Laraque-Arena was recently appointed president of SUNY Upstate Medical University. Danielle is a former pediatric resident and a Robert Wood Johnson fellow in general pediatrics from CHOP, who has spent most of her career in New York. I had the pleasure of spending an hour or so with Danielle at the recent AAMC meeting, talking about her enthusiasm for this new work, where she will be the first woman to lead the university!

David Jaffe has been named the new director of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Department of Education. David spent his formative medical years at CHOP, as a pediatric resident, one of the first fellows in Emergency Medicine, and as a Robert Wood Johnson fellow in general academic pediatrics. In his new role, David will be responsible for continuing medical education programs in more than 60 pediatric topic areas, including the AAP National Conference and Exhibition. Congratulations, Dave!

And finally (for this issue), Alex Fiks, a pediatric attending, has been appointed director of the AAP Pediatric Research in Office Settings (PROS) Network. Alex has achieved fame at a young age, as he was a CHOP pediatric resident between 1997 and 2000. As the director of PROS, Alex will lead a network that has a nearly 30- year history of research that guides practice and policy. PROS welcomes investigators interested in primary care-oriented research, and I’m sure he would be delighted to connect with CHOP alumni who are interested in joining the network. He will receive your congratulations and inquiries about PROS at fiks@email.chop.edu.

That’s it for this column, but I need more exciting announcements to include in my next column. So please email me at christian@email.chop.edu, and you too, can be famous (ie, mentioned in this column).

Best wishes always,

Cindy Christian, MD
Alumni Editor

Honors and awards

Kathy Shaw, MD, MSCE, was named 2015 Emergency Department Director of the Year by the Emergency Medicine Foundation and Blue Jay Consulting. Shaw, who began at CHOP as a resident in 1982, became chief of the Division of Emergency Medicine in 1996 and stepped down in 2015 to concentrate on her role as associate chair for Quality and Patient Safety in the Department of Pediatrics.

Scott Bartlett, MD, chief, Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, received the American Society of Maxillofacial Surgeons President’s Honorary Award, given to honor a physician’s countless contributions and service to the specialty and enormous impact on the profession by educating and mentoring generations of plastic surgeons.