Nancy Walton Pugh Child Advocacy Award
This award is named in honor of Dr. Nancy Walton Pugh, who was a member of our general pediatric faculty from 1998-2003. With every patient encounter, Dr. Walton demonstrated her extraordinary commitment to the care of her patients, her compassion, and her willingness to advocate in whatever way necessary for the well-being of each patient. This award is established to recognize outstanding efforts by a pediatric resident(s) whose efforts have led to the improved health and well-being of children and is awarded in recognition of an outstanding advocacy project initiated and implemented during residency.
2008 Dr. Mark Cummings, Dr. Arthi Krishnan
Dr. Mark Cummings has been working over the past year to establish the Louisa County Childhood Obesity Task Force. He partnered with state leaders, attending the Governor's Healthy Student Summit in Richmond, where he met and developed working relationships with colleagues from across the state. He also collaborated with local leaders, especially school administrators and principals. He worked to identify existing community resources and coordinated the inaugural meeting of the taskforce. Since then, the task force has evaluated the performance of Louisa County schools using the Governors Scorecard for Fitness and Nutrition Programs, identifying significant areas where meaningful change could be made, especially in the area of physical fitness offereings. They plan to continue to use this tool to measure progress. They also changed the drop-off location for school buses so that children are dropped off 1/4 mile from school and finish the trip to school with a walk.
Dr. Arthi Krishnan is a strong advocate for her patients and has become involved over the past year in legislative advocacy for children. She submitted a successful application for a Dyson Resident-Faculty Scholarship, through which she was able to attend the AAP Legislative Conferenc in Washington, DC this year. As part of this award, she is working with colleagues to develop a Virginia pediatric resident child advocacy workshop scheduled to be launched this fall at the October AAP meeting in Williamsburg. She also presented her work on this project at a workshop at the Birdsong Pediatric Conference. She plans to make the workshop an annual event to provide residents with the skills necessary to speak up for children's health issues at both the state and federal levels.
2007 Dr. Denise Aronzon, Dr. Amber Pendleton
Dr. Denise Aronzon is a patient advocate with every patient she sees and has received funding from UVA and from a CATCH Grant to start a monthly prenatal group meeting with high-risk mothers from the OB Clinic at the Primary Care Center. The meetings will start summer, 2007.
Dr. Amber Pendleton has been working with the Childhood Obesity Task Force and has received a CATCH grant to assist with the first Family Fitness Weekend for overweight and at-risk children in our community. Dr. Pendleton has been a leader in this effort and has involved other residents in this important work.
2006 Dr. Heidi Martinson
Dr. Heidi Martinson is a true child advocate who is very conscientious of her patients' needs and care. Regardless of whether a family needs more support and instruction, whether a patient needs social work management, whether a patient needs redirection of care, Dr. Martinson is there. Her work with the Healer's Art program demonstrates her passion for meaning and truth in medicine. Dr. Martinson was the only resident to participate in this program, and then led her own group of medical students thereafter. Dr. Martinson also worked tirelessly as a Home Visit Leader, always caring for her patients as real, whole people who need all of their medical, emotional, and economic concerns addressed.
2005 Dr. Jessica Simmons
Dr. Jessica Simmons undertook a study of the effects of the Reach Out and Read Program on patients cared for via our home visit program, and she applied for a CATCH grant to further this work. She was also selected as one of twenty residents in the U.S. chosen to participate in the year-long AMSA Leadership Series Seminar, 2004-05, which entailed a series of seminars focused on the development of physician leadership and issues of rural health in the United States. As part of this program, she developed a study of the effects of the Reach Out and Read Program on the rural patients cared for in our Orange County pediatric clinic.
2004 Dr. Gretchen Huot, Dr. Elizabeth McGowan
Dr. Gretchen Huot identified a lack of unified care for the large and ever-growing refugee population served at the University of Virginia. She obtained a CATCH planning grant in 2002 to fund work designed to identify barriers to accessing medical care for refugee families and their children; she worked closely with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and others in the community to identify the present level of resources available and to define unmet needs. She presented her work at the Region IV Ambulatory Pediatrics Regional Meeting in January 2003. She was also awarded the Annie Dyson Award for Advocacy, 2003, and was recognized at the national AAP meeting for her efforts. She also undertook the development of a child advocacy elective as part of our residency curriculum, designed to allow residents to focus on an issue of child advocacy in depth.
Dr. Elizabeth McGowan identified a lack of available dental resources for patients seen at the University of Virginia. She obtained toothbrushes and toothpaste for these patients and worked with dentists to raise awareness about this issue. She also worked towards developing a fluoride varnish program for children seen in our pediatric clinics with limited resources and limited access to dental care, as well as worked to expand topics of dental health in the resident curriculum. She presented her work wt the Region IV Ambulatory Pediatrics Meeting in January, 2004.