June 1, 2016

6116SurgicalResearch640More than 300 members of the Texas Children’s Hospital Department of Surgery attended the sixth annual Edmond T. Gonzales, Jr., Surgical Research Day on May 6. The event provided a forum for researchers across the department to showcase their work.

“I really look forward to this day every year where we get a chance to highlight some of the important research being conducted in the department,” said Dr. Charles D. Fraser, Jr., surgeon-in-chief at Texas Children’s Hospital. “Creating new knowledge is central to our core values as academic surgeons at Texas Children’s Hospital.”

This year 122 abstracts were submitted for review. Eleven of these abstracts were chosen for oral presentations on Surgical Research Day and 111 were accepted for poster presentations. This year eight students vied for the Best Presentation award and three faculty members were chosen to present their research.

The 2016 keynote speaker was Dr. Rebecca Richards-Kortum from Rice University. She is the Malcolm Gillis University Professor, a professor of Bioengineering and a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Richards-Kortum is also director of two institutes – Rice 360° Institute for Global Health and the Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering – and the founder of Beyond Traditional Borders. She spoke about “Technologies to Improve Pediatric and Surgical Care in Low-Resource Settings.”

Payal Cramer, a health care attorney from Baker Hostetler, LLP gave an ethics presentation on “Patient Privacy and Research” specifically discussing extracting research from electronic medical records.

Awards presented at the event were the Samuel Stal Research Award for outstanding research by a resident or fellow, the Research Mentor Award, and Best Oral Presentation and Best Poster Presentation.

The Samuel Stal Research Award was presented to pediatric and adolescent gynecology fellow Dr. Julie Hakim for her work in pediatric device development. The award is named after Dr. Samuel Stal, former chief of Plastic Surgery at Texas Children’s.

Dr. Jed Nuchtern, chief of Pediatric Surgery, was honored with the Research Mentor Award. The award is given on an annual basis to honor a Department of Surgery faculty member who serves as a research mentor through career development, professional guidance or cultivation of research interests.

Dr. Yangyang Yu, a researcher in Pediatric Surgery, received the Best Oral Presentation award for her presentation on “Time-Driven, Activity-Based Costing to Identify Opportunities for Cost Reduction in Pediatric Appendectomy.”

Best Poster award was given to Chi-Han Lu from Pediatric Surgery for his work “Pseudotyped AAV Vector-Mediated Gene Transfer in a Human Fetal Trachea Xenograft Model: Implications for In Utero Gene Therapy for Cystic Fibrosis.”

The Surgical Research Day Planning Committee included Dr. Jed Nuchtern (chair), Melinda Mathis (co-chair), Dr. Swathi Balaji, Dr. Jennifer Dietrich, Dr. Chester Koh, Dr. Lingkun Kong, Dr. Sandi Lam, Dr. Liz McCullum, Dr. Scott Rosenfeld, Kathy Carberry, RN, Matthew Girotto, Angie Rangel, Veronica Victorian, Anissa Quiroz, Stacey Staples, Shon Bower and Laura Higgins.

6116TCHPFloodRelief640Recent Houston floods devastated many local neighborhoods, and left Greenspoint families in dire need of emergency assistance. The Centers for Children and Women care about the communities they serve and wanted to help. On May 4, The Center for Children and Women in Greenspoint held a Houston Storm Recovery Distribution Event for local flood victims. Items such as clothing, diapers, toiletries and cleaning supplies were distributed to more than 450 families.

“Many of our patients and our community still have a lot of needs after the recent floods, so our staff members decided something needed to be done to help our community, said Dr. Heidi Schwarzwald, chief medical officer pediatrics of Texas Children’s Health Plan. “We are pleased that we were able to help so many families through the thousands of supplies donated by our employees and by generous local companies.”

Houston Food Bank provided emergency kits that included canned goods and water. Attendees also could receive application assistance for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). All donations were provided by Texas Children’s Health Plan and Center employees, Nestle and Kroger.

6116craniosynostosis640More than 120 people recently attended Texas Children’s Hospital’s annual Craniosynostosis Reunion, which honors families whose children have undergone craniosynostosis surgery at the hospital.

Donned in superhero T-shirts and capes, patients and their families enjoyed a day filled with games, socializing and laughter as they celebrated healed scars, which were barely visible in the patients’ hair. Families shared stories and remembered the hope and strength they received when their child had surgery.

At Texas Children’s, the comprehensive Craniosynostosis Surgery Program brings together a multidisciplinary team of pediatric neurosurgeons and plastic surgeons as well as geneticists, ophthalmologists, social workers, otolaryngologists and anesthesiologists to meet the needs of each patient.

“It is a privilege to take care of children,” said Dr. Sandi Lam, pediatric neurosurgeon and co-director of the Craniosynostosis Surgery Program at Texas Children’s. “We are lucky to be able to support and connect patients and families in a meaningful way, beyond surgery. Seeing these children and families reminds us why we do what we do every day.”

Led by Lam and Dr. Laura Monson, pediatric plastic surgeon and the program’s co-director, Texas Children’s Craniosynostosis Surgery Program is among the largest in the country, offering a spectrum of treatment strategies including minimally invasive surgery and complex reconstructions. For more information about the program, visit the website.

Billie Casteel, Mary Kana, Lorraine Cogan, Show Bower and Sarah Colton organized the annual Craniosynostosis Reunion event, mobilizing other dedicated Texas Children’s staff and volunteers. A special treat was “SteveO,” a Houston area professional photographer who graciously volunteered his services for this special Texas Children’s Hospital event.

6116usergroup640Representatives from more than 15 institutions and leaders from Epic, Omnicell and Codonics attended a conference hosted by Texas Children’s Hospital on May 23 and 24. The meeting focused on the innovation, integration, and interoperability of systems used in the medication use process within the operating room.

The Department of Pharmacy, in collaboration with Anesthesiology and Information Services, invited these three vendors to share their recent innovations and hear the collective voice of users that run these systems together. The goals were to leverage technology to optimize patient care and to initiate collaborative and constructive conversation to make improvements in workflow and safety.

The discussions provided opportunities to discover new ideas, share lessons learned, and gain knowledge from one another.

6116girlselevated640More than 250 adolescent girls and their parents attended the third annual Girls Elevated event on Saturday, April 30, at the United Way Community Resource Center in Houston.

Hosted by experts from Texas Children’s and Baylor College of Medicine Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the purpose of this empowering, interactive one-day event is to educate teens about their bodies and help them cope with peer pressure and self-esteem issues that often occur during puberty.

Girls between the ages of 10 and 18, and their mothers or caregivers, attended separate, age-appropriate sessions to hear from physicians, law enforcement and other experts on topics girls want and need to know about from physical development to personal safety to healthy relationships.

Topics for the girls included: puberty and menses, hygiene, skin care and physical wellness, social skills, self-esteem and personal safety.

Topics for the adult caregivers included: What’s “normal,” HPV, promoting positive self-esteem, how to communicate with your teen and stress management.

Keynote speaker Stacy Mosely delivered an inspirational talk about how she overcame shyness and bullying at school and how she has excelled in her rewarding career as senior associate director of Athletics at Rice University.

Since Girls Elevated launched in 2014, more than 400 participants have participated in this empowering event. Planning is underway for next year’s event.

6116typhoontexastri640More than 1,000 children participated in the Typhoon Texas Kids Tri, making it the second largest kid’s triathlon in the world.

Texas Children’s Hospital sponsored the event, which was held on May 22 at the new Typhoon Texas waterpark in Katy.

Participants ages 6 to 17 swam the lazy river in the waterpark then biked and ran around the Katy Mills Mall before sprinting back to an amazing finish and post race inside Typhoon Texas.

Congratulations to all!

52616retirementREV640Are you looking forward to retirement, or does the thought of planning for your future keep you awake at night? As part of our Total Rewards program, Texas Children’s has partnered with Fidelity Investments, our 403(b) administrator, to create various retirement services and resources that can help you kick start or fuel your retirement planning.

Take advantage of these ingredients and develop your own recipe for retirement success!

Ingredient 1: Enroll in Texas Children’s 403(b) savings plan
Don’t miss out on our 50 percent match of the first 6 percent of your pre-tax per paycheck contribution. You can enroll anytime by contacting Fidelity at 800-343-0860 or online at www.fidelity.com/atwork.

Ingredient 2: Attend a retirement seminar in June
Learn how to navigate the retirement process with this 30-minute seminar so that you can establish financial goals for your future, learn tips on how to build a plan, and much more. The seminars will be hosted at multiple locations throughout our Texas Children’s campuses in June. Click here for dates, times and locations. Register today online or call 800-642-7131. Space is limited, register today to reserve a seat.

Ingredient 3: Schedule a one-on-one session with a retirement consultant
Use this opportunity to have a personal discussion about your retirement and learn how to build a plan that fits your future needs. Sessions are currently available at Main and West Campuses through the year. Space is limited, click here to register.

Ingredient 4: Participate in this online workshop – Thrive: Financial Wellness
Attend this series of online workshops at Fidelity at your own time and pace. These sessions focus on how you can save for your future, along with the tools and resources you can use to become a more educated investor. Click here to register.

This recipe yields your path to retirement success.

If you have any retirement-related questions, contact Fidelity at 800-343-0860 or visit them online at www.fidelity.com/atwork.