Category Archives: Pediatrics

Pediatrics

Expert shares advice for parents navigating pediatric influenza, COVID-19, and RSV this winter – Newswise

Newswise Coping with the challenges of parenting can be particularly stressful for those concerned about the flu, COVID-19, or RSV. With an increase in cases this season, parents are seeking effective preventive measures and safety guidelines for their kids. Dr. Christopher Pierce, the interim chair of pediatrics at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, offers insights on managing these three illnesses.

This year, doctors are currently seeing high numbers of flu and this started a bit earlier than historically, says Dr. Pierce. Yearly flu vaccines are needed to give our immune systems a "reminder" of how to fight the flu, there is some added immunity that repeat exposure plays as well.

The prevalence of influenza among children has decreased early pandemic but increased over the past two years, which Dr. Pierce attributes to the heightened exposure to COVID-19 during that period. There was minimal influenza activity from spring 2020 through early summer 2022, which was a direct result of masking and social distancing.

He also says RSV is still prominent, but has begun a decline. RSV is more difficult to track as it is not reportable as are Flu and COVID, which means there is not a good way to keep track of these numbers.

Dr. Pierce says it is important to look for key indicators to assess the severity of your childs illness. Parents should look for rapid breathing, using accessory muscles such as "tummy breathing or "head bobbing, and if older children are complaining of not breathing well, would warrant an emergent evaluation. He says to also watch their level of alertness and fluid intake. Nonetheless, he stresses that reaching out to the primary care provider is the safest way to evaluate a childs level of illness and get the best care.

To differentiate between the three, Dr. Pierce recommends getting tested. Influenza, COVID-19, and RSV can mimic one another, so knowing which symptoms align with which illness can help parents. Overall, COVID-19 symptoms tend to be milder in children and the flu is more of the fever/aches/malaise. RSV is different for premature and younger infants as it can trigger lower respiratory symptoms known as bronchiolitis (not bronchitis) which can lead to respiratory distress which requires hospitalization to manage.

His biggest piece of advice - get the flu vaccine. It is the safest and most effective way to prevent the risk of hospitalization and death from influenza.

- Written by Sarah Hern

Dr. Christopher Pierce is the interim chair of pediatrics with the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine (VTCSOM) and an associate professor of pediatrics. He is also the Chief of General Pediatrics at Carilion Childrens. His leadership has been instrumental in establishing Carilion Childrens Tanglewood Center, which opened in 2021, as the anchor for pediatric care for the region. Dr. Pierce joined Carilion in 2001 as a general pediatrician.

Continue reading here:

Expert shares advice for parents navigating pediatric influenza, COVID-19, and RSV this winter - Newswise

Pediatrics

Global Group of Researchers Release New Criteria for Diagnosing Pediatric Sepsis and Septic Shock – AboutLawsuits.com

The Society of Critical Care Medicine convened a task force of 35 pediatric experts in critical care, emergency medicine, infectious diseases, general pediatrics, nursing, public health, and neonatology from six continents to recommend a new set of guidelines on how to treat children under 18 years old with suspected sepsis and a higher risk of death.

The team, led by researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, conducted a systematic review and analysis of more than 3 million pediatric health care encounters from 10 medical sites across four continents.

The task force recommended defining sepsis in children as infections identified by two points using the Phoenix Sepsis Score, which includes identifying dysfunction of the respiratory, cardiovascular, coagulation, and/or neurological systems.

The review indicates children with at least two points on the sepsis score had a 7% increased risk of death in the hospital if they were treated in higher resource settings and a 29% increased risk if they were treated in lower resource hospitals. This risk of death was eight times higher than among children with suspected infections who do not meet the new sepsis criteria.

Children with septic shock had an 11% increased risk of death in higher resource hospitals and a 34% increased risk of death if they were treated in lower-resource hospitals.

Death rates were also higher among children with organ dysfunction in the respiratory, cardiovascular, coagulation, or neurological organ systems.

Prior to the new criteria, most doctors defined sepsis as an infection with life-threatening organ dysfunction that can lead to death.

With the new criteria, septic shock is defined as children with sepsis who had cardiovascular dysfunction with at least one cardiovascular point on the Phoenix Sepsis Score.

The new criteria updates sepsis definitions first established in 2005 and later defined as a life-threatening infection in 2016. However, those criteria did not include children and left many to suffer untreated sepsis, since there was no agreed consensus as to when to diagnose it and how to treat it, because a childs body responds to sepsis in a different way than adults.

Adults can often have a drop in blood pressure early on, but children maintain blood pressure much longer, but can experience severe symptoms in a different way. Children suffering from sepsis or septic shock can experience damage to the kidneys, lungs, heart, and brain, as well as death, if the condition is not treated quickly and appropriately.

Researchers said the new Phoenix Sepsis Score criteria has the potential to improve clinical care, epidemiological assessment, and research in pediatric sepsis and septic shock around the world.

Read the original here:

Global Group of Researchers Release New Criteria for Diagnosing Pediatric Sepsis and Septic Shock - AboutLawsuits.com

Pediatrics

Recurrent Syncope Unveiling Pulmonary Hypertension Secondary to Pulmonary Artery Thrombi in a Pediatric Patient – Cureus

Specialty

Please choose I'm not a medical professional. Allergy and Immunology Anatomy Anesthesiology Cardiac/Thoracic/Vascular Surgery Cardiology Critical Care Dentistry Dermatology Diabetes and Endocrinology Emergency Medicine Epidemiology and Public Health Family Medicine Forensic Medicine Gastroenterology General Practice Genetics Geriatrics Health Policy Hematology HIV/AIDS Hospital-based Medicine I'm not a medical professional. Infectious Disease Integrative/Complementary Medicine Internal Medicine Internal Medicine-Pediatrics Medical Education and Simulation Medical Physics Medical Student Nephrology Neurological Surgery Neurology Nuclear Medicine Nutrition Obstetrics and Gynecology Occupational Health Oncology Ophthalmology Optometry Oral Medicine Orthopaedics Osteopathic Medicine Otolaryngology Pain Management Palliative Care Pathology Pediatrics Pediatric Surgery Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Plastic Surgery Podiatry Preventive Medicine Psychiatry Psychology Pulmonology Radiation Oncology Radiology Rheumatology Substance Use and Addiction Surgery Therapeutics Trauma Urology Miscellaneous

Read the original here:

Recurrent Syncope Unveiling Pulmonary Hypertension Secondary to Pulmonary Artery Thrombi in a Pediatric Patient - Cureus

Pediatrics

ChatGPT bombs test on diagnosing kids’ medical cases with 83% error rate – Ars Technica

Enlarge / Dr. Greg House has a better rate of accurately diagnosing patients than ChatGPT.

ChatGPT is still no House, MD.

While the chatty AI bot has previously underwhelmed with its attempts to diagnose challenging medical caseswith an accuracy rate of 39 percent in an analysis last yeara study out this week in JAMA Pediatrics suggests the fourth version of the large language model is especially bad with kids. It had an accuracy rate of just 17 percent when diagnosing pediatric medical cases.

The low success rate suggests human pediatricians won't be out of jobs any time soon, in case that was a concern. As the authors put it: "[T]his study underscores the invaluable role that clinical experience holds." But it also identifies the critical weaknesses that led to ChatGPT's high error rate and ways to transform it into a useful tool in clinical care. With so much interest and experimentation with AI chatbots, many pediatricians and other doctors see their integration into clinical care as inevitable.

The medical field has generally been an early adopter of AI-powered technologies, resulting in some notable failures, such as creating algorithmic racial bias, as well as successes, such as automating administrative tasks and helping to interpret chest scans and retinal images. There's also lot in between. But AI's potential for problem-solving has raised considerable interest in developing it into a helpful tool for complex diagnosticsno eccentric, prickly, pill-popping medical genius required.

In the new study conducted by researchers at Cohen Childrens Medical Center in New York, ChatGPT-4 showed it isn't ready for pediatric diagnoses yet. Compared to general cases, pediatric ones require more consideration of the patient's age, the researchers note. And as any parent knows, diagnosing conditions in infants and small children is especially hard when they can't pinpoint or articulate all the symptoms they're experiencing.

For the study, the researchers put the chatbot up against 100 pediatric case challenges published in JAMA Pediatrics and NEJM between 2013 and 2023. These are medical cases published as challenges or quizzes. Physicians reading along are invited to try to come up with the correct diagnosis of a complex or unusual case based on the information that attending doctors had at the time. Sometimes, the publications also explain how attending doctors got to the correct diagnosis.

For ChatGPT's test, the researchers pasted the relevant text of the medical cases into the prompt, and then two qualified physician-researchers scored the AI-generated answers as correct, incorrect, or "did not fully capture the diagnosis." In the latter case, ChatGPT came up with a clinically related condition that was too broad or unspecific to be considered the correct diagnosis. For instance, ChatGPT diagnosed one child's case as caused by a branchial cleft cysta lump in the neck or below the collarbonewhen the correct diagnosis was Branchio-oto-renal syndrome, a genetic condition that causes the abnormal development of tissue in the neck, and malformations in the ears and kidneys. One of the signs of the condition is the formation of branchial cleft cysts.

Overall, ChatGPT got the right answer in just 17 of the 100 cases. It was plainly wrong in 72 cases, and did not fully capture the diagnosis of the remaining 11 cases. Among the 83 wrong diagnoses, 47 (57 percent) were in the same organ system.

Among the failures, researchers noted that ChatGPT appeared to struggle with spotting known relationships between conditions that an experienced physician would hopefully pick up on. For example, it didn't make the connection between autism and scurvy (Vitamin C deficiency) in one medical case. Neuropsychiatric conditions, such as autism, can lead to restricted diets, and that in turn can lead to vitamin deficiencies. As such, neuropsychiatric conditions are notable risk factors for the development of vitamin deficiencies in kids living in high-income countries, and clinicians should be on the lookout for them. ChatGPT, meanwhile, came up with the diagnosis of a rare autoimmune condition.

Though the chatbot struggled in this test, the researchers suggest it could improve by being specifically and selectively trained on accurate and trustworthy medical literaturenot stuff on the Internet, which can include inaccurate information and misinformation. They also suggest chatbots could improve with more real-time access to medical data, allowing the models to refine their accuracy, described as "tuning."

"This presents an opportunity for researchers to investigate if specific medical data training and tuning can improve the diagnostic accuracy of LLM-based chatbots," the authors conclude.

See the original post here:

ChatGPT bombs test on diagnosing kids' medical cases with 83% error rate - Ars Technica

Pediatrics

ChatGPT is terrible at diagnosing child medical cases, according to new study – Mashable

OpenAI's ChatGPT is no closer to replacing your family physicians, as the increasingly advanced chatbot failed to accurately diagnose the vast majority of hypothetical pediatric cases.

The findings were part of a new study published in JAMA Pediatrics on Jan. 2, conducted by researchers from Cohen Children's Medical Center in New York. The researchers analyzed the bot's responses to requests for medical diagnosis of child illnesses and found that the bot had an 83 percent error rate across tests.

The study used what are known as pediatric case challenges, or medical cases originally posted to groups of physicians as learning opportunities (or diagnostic challenges) involving unusual or limited information. Researchers sampled 100 challenges published on JAMA Pediatrics and NEJM between the years 2013 and 2023.

ChatGPT provided incorrect diagnoses for 72 out of 100 of the experimental cases provided, and generated 11 answers that were deemed "clinically related" to the correct diagnosis but considered too broad to be correct.

The researchers attribute part of this failure to the generative AI's inability to recognize relationships between certain conditions and external or preexisting circumstances, often used to help diagnose patients in a clinical setting. For example, ChatGPT did not connect "neuropsychiatric conditions" (such as autism) to commonly seen cases of vitamin deficiency and other restrictive-diet-based conditions.

The study concludes that ChatGPT needs continued training and involvement of medical professionals that feeds the AI not with an internet-generated well of information, which can often cycle in misinformation, but on vetted medical literature and expertise.

AI-based chatbots relying on Large Language Models (LLMs) have been previously studied for their efficacy in diagnosing medical cases and in accomplishing the daily tasks of physicians. Last year, researchers tested generative AI's ability to pass the three-part United States Medical Licensing Exam It passed.

But while it's still highly criticized for its training limits and potential to exacerbate medical bias, many medical groups, including the American Medical Association, don't view the advancement of AI in the field just as a threat of replacement. Instead, better trained AI's are considered ripe for their administrative and communicative potential, like generating patient-side text, explaining diagnoses in common terms, or in generating instructions. Clinical uses, like diagnostics, remain a controversial, and hard to research, topic.

To that extent, the new report represents the first analysis of a chatbot's diagnostic potential in a purely pediatric setting acknowledging the specialized medical training undertaken by medical professionals. Its current limitations show that even the most advanced chatbot on the public market can't yet compete with the full range of human expertise.

Originally posted here:

ChatGPT is terrible at diagnosing child medical cases, according to new study - Mashable

Pediatrics

The clinical takeaways of the RSV immunizations – Contemporary Pediatrics

Welcome to the final episode of our 5-episode series; respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) Roundtable, a collaborative project fromContemporary Pediatrics,Contagion, andContemporary OB/GYN.

This series discusses several aspects of RSV including incidence rates, vaccines, and immunizations.

In this episode, our panel offers their insights on the implications that the RSV immunizations may have now and in the future.

Our panel of clinicians includes:

Click here for all episodes of this RSV Roundtable video series.

Thank you for watching RSV Roundtable.

Go here to see the original:

The clinical takeaways of the RSV immunizations - Contemporary Pediatrics

Pediatrics

Missouri pediatricians provide eight parenting goals to start the new year strong – Kirksville Daily Express and Daily News

Missouri Chapter, American Academy of Pediatrics

New Year resolutions are often sweeping and grand, but sometimes you can reap the biggest rewards by building off the strengths already in place. Helping to make your family safer, stronger and more harmonious in 2024 may not require a complete overhaul, but rather a few strategic tweaks.

There is no time like the new year to plan how you are going to practice health and wellness as a family, said Dr. Maya Moody, President of the Missouri Chapter, American Academy of Pediatrics (MOAAP). Families are already doing great things, but there are always ways to make the time you spend with your loved ones even better.

Here are eight goals for parents and caregivers:

Get everyone up to date on recommended immunizations. Vaccines are the best way to protect yourself, your children, and other loved ones from dangerous viruses such as flu and covid, which are spiking among children. Call your pediatrician to make sure your children are up to date on all recommended immunizations, and ask any questions you may have. And remind your children that good hand hygiene habits help prevent the spread of germs.

Do good digital. What are your kids watching on TV and online? Devote some time to researching age-appropriate media. Make a family media use plan and try to prevent gaming from becoming an unhealthy habit. Remember that screen time shouldn't always be done solo. Watch a show together and discuss whats happening. Play a video game together. Screen time can become bonding time when adults are active participants.

Read together. Set aside time for reading each day. For younger children, build it into the bedtime routine. For older children and teens, share a favorite book by taking turns reading aloud or listen to audiobooks together. Reading has so many brain-boosting benefits for kids. Reading together also strengthens that special bond between you and your child.

Get outside and explore. Spending time outdoors can be a great mood booster, and help families get needed physical activity and vitamin D while enjoying time in nature. Spending time outside also give your child's eyes a healthy screen-time break and help them sleep better at night.

Check your car seat limits for safety. Kids grow so fast and they can easily outgrow car seats faster than parents realize. Keep children riding rear-facing as long as possible, up to the limits of their car seat, because it is the safest mode. This commonly includes children under 2 and most children up to age 4. See if there are any new car seat laws that may be going into effect in your state in the new year. Remind anyone who transports your child by car to abide by all safety rules.

Set aside time to cook as a family. Many families enjoy baking treats together during the holidays. Keep the fun going in the new year. Schedule special times to cook together and get children involved, from choosing recipes to buying ingredients at the store. If your child is a fussy eater, this can get them more interested in trying new, healthy foods.

Make a family disaster kit. It's scary to think how disasters like wildfires, hurricanes or tornados could affect our communities, but extreme weather events are becoming more frequent due to climate change. Being ready is one way to be less afraid. Ask your children what they would want with them in a disaster and assemble necessities, like non-perishable foods, flashlights, and bottled water, for when a disaster strikes.

Mind your mental health and practice self-care. When was the last time you had a check-up? Got proper rest? Depression and anxiety can happen to both moms and dads during and after pregnancy, even up to three years after having a child. The National Maternal Mental Health Hotline is available 24/7 by calling 1-833-943-5746. And for non-emergency resources and support, you can contact Postpartum Support International: call or text "Help" to 1-800-944-4773.

Additional useful tips:

Healthy New Year's Resolutions for Children & Teens

Making Physical Activity a Way of Life

Healthy Self-Care for Teens: 4 Ways Families Can Help

About MOAAP

The Missouri Chapter, American Academy of Pediatrics (MOAAP) represents more than 1,100 physicians, trainees, and pediatric-provider members throughout Missouri. Our mission is to promote the health of all Missouris children through advocacy, education, and collaboration. For more information, visit missouriaap.org.

See the article here:

Missouri pediatricians provide eight parenting goals to start the new year strong - Kirksville Daily Express and Daily News

Pediatrics

Reviewing the 2023 RSV season and an outlook on 2024 – Contemporary Pediatrics

In this video interview, Tina Tan, MD, FAAP, FIDSA, FPIDS, editor in chief, Contemporary Pediatrics, professor of pediatrics, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, pediatric infectious diseases attending, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, recaps 2023 with regard to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

Tan breaks down the severity of the RSV season in 2023, how newly FDA approved preventive tools have changed the treatment landscape, and what could be in store for 2024.

Interview transcript (edited for clarity):

Contemporary Pediatrics:

Hello and thanks for watching. I'm Joshua Fitch, editor of Contemporary Pediatrics. Today I'm joined by Dr. Tina Tan, editor in chief of Contemporary Pediatrics and a pediatric infectious disease attending at Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago. Dr. Tan, thank you for being here. First, let's talk about what a year it's been when it comes to RSV. Going back to about a year ago, when it was a very difficult RSV season, can you take us back and recap that a little bit, and really the urgent need for some some new treatment for this obviously, very young population?

Tina Tan, MD, FAAP, FIDSA, FPIDS:

Yeah, absolutely. So RSV causes annual epidemics, but last year, what we were noticing is that there wasn't just 1 epidemic, but there were actually several surges of RSV that occurred out of its normal season. So RSV normally occurs between October and March here in the United States and for reasons that are still not understood, we actually had several surges last year with 1 surge actually occurring during the summer. But it was the fall surge, which started earlier, that really was incredible, because we also were having surges of influenza, as well as COVIDa nd what that ended up doing was it overwhelmed the pediatric health care system so that there really were few to no hospital beds that were available at any given time. There were children that actually had to be transported either by ambulance or helicopter to other states in order to be treated and hospitalized for complications that they were having from RSV. It really did point out the fact that we did not have any way of preventing RSV disease, and that we really needed to have other tools in order to decrease the amount of severe RSV that we were seeing that was placing kids and infants in the hospital.

Contemporary Pediatrics:

Thank you Dr. Tan, of course, like you just mentioned, that harsh of an RSV season then turned into those new tools and vaccines to prevent the disease, including nirsevimab approved in July 2023 and Pfizer's maternal vaccine approved in August. Obviously, this was an exciting time looking back, can you kind of discuss what these approvals meant at that time, and really still mean now for RSV disease?

Tan:

That was fantastic news, because it really put other tools in our toolbox that we could use to prevent the severe complications that were being seen with RSV, especially in the younger infants under 6 months of age. And not only were we able to give a monoclonal antibody to the infants under 8 months of age, but we also were able to vaccinate pregnant women between 32 and 36 weeks so that they would be able to pass antibody on to their babies during a time when the baby would be at greatest risk for having complications should they get RSV, so it was really fantastic news that we had 2 different tools available that could decrease the amount of severe RSV disease that was being seen.

Contemporary Pediatrics:

To quickly follow up on that, you explained it from the health care professional standpoint. In your day-to-day, talk about kind of a sense of relief, if there was one from the parents standpoint, as they were the ones also dealing with their child having RSV disease, the cause for concern. Can you touch on that, what you've seen and what kind of relief these these approvals have brought?

Tan:

When nirsevimab was first approved, there were parents that were literally calling and clamoring to try and get the vaccines for their babies or the monoclonal antibody for their babies. Talking to some of my ob-gyn colleagues, there were women that were asking for RSV vaccine because they understood, because many of them had other children that this could be a potentially severe infection that their younger baby could get, and so they were actually asking the ob-gyn for the vaccine. So, I think that the word has gotten out that we do have something that can prevent hospitalization and other complications in these very young babies.

Contemporary Pediatrics:

You mentioned the word getting out. Well, recently following the approvals, the next question heading into September and October was availability, mainly with nirsevimab as it turned out. In October, the CDC recommended it'd be prioritized for the highest risk infants, amid some limited availability. Can you talk about some of the rollout challenges you've noticed, and availability now that we're into the RSV season and the winter months?

Tan:

It really has been a challenge for individuals to get an adequate supply of nirsevimab. Nobody has an adequate supply. People are prioritizing their 100 mg doses, which is recommended for infants that are 5 kilos and greater in weight to those infants that are under 6 months of age, infants that have underlying conditions, and infants that are Alaskan Native, American Indian infants, because we know that these are infants that are at the greatest risk for complication, should they get RSV.

Contemporary Pediatrics:

Is that kind of an unprecedented situation to where here's the brand new tool we've been talking about for so long, but now, how do we get it to everyone? Have we seen this before on such a large nationwide scale.

Tan:

We've seen this before, in some of the severe influenza seasons, where individuals were not able to get enough influenza vaccine to vaccinate their patients. So it's not unheard of that this happened and I think what probably occurred is that there was an underestimation of the demand that would happen once the product was released.

Contemporary Pediatrics:

Thank you, Dr. Tan. Lastly, we've kind of reviewed start of 2023 to now, looking ahead in your opinion, where do you think we stand when it comes to these preventative treatments? What trends have you noticed this RSV season, and if you can speak to any national trends as well, that'd be great, as we close out 2023 and really look into 2024's winter months.

Tan:

Right now we are starting to see a surge in RSV in many different areas of the country. It still remains to be seen how effective the limited amount of nirsevimab being given and maternal immunization being uptaken will have in terms of impacting the amount of severe RSV disease that we're seeing. My hope is that there is going to be some impact it might not have been as great as we would have liked to seen, but I would hope that there would be some impact with the use of the nirsevimab available and the maternal vaccination on the amount of severe RSV disease that may occur.

Contemporary Pediatrics:

Dr. Tan thank you so much for speaking with us.

Tan:

My pleasure.

See the article here:

Reviewing the 2023 RSV season and an outlook on 2024 - Contemporary Pediatrics

Pediatrics

Predictive Factors for Insulin Resistance in Pediatric Obesity: A Comprehensive Analysis – Physician’s Weekly

The following is a summary of Predicting Insulin Resistance in a Pediatric Population With Obesity, published in the December 2023 issue of Pediatrics by Arajo, et al.

Insulin resistance (IR) affects overweight and obese kids and teens, and its important to catch it early to avoid long-term problems. For a study, researchers sought to find factors that can be used to predict IR and create a multivariate model that could do this correctly. They did a cross-sectional study of demographic, clinical, and biochemical data from a group of patients who went to a specialized Pediatric Nutrition Unit in Portugal over 20 years. To identify IR, they made multivariate regression models.

People who took part were randomly split into two groups: a model group that worked on building predictive models and a confirmation group that checked the studys results against the model. Results: 1423 people between the ages of 3 and 17 took part in their study. They were randomly split into two groups: the model group (n = 879) and the evaluation group (n = 544). The predictive models, which used demographic and clinical factors that were not used in other models, were good at telling the difference [area under the curve (AUC): 0.8340.868; sensitivity: 77.0%83.7%; specificity: 77.0%78.7%] and had high negative predictive values (88.9%91.6%).

Adding fasting glucose or triglycerides/HDL cholesterol index to the models based on clinical factors did not make them better at diagnosing, but adding fasting insulin seemed to make the model better at telling the difference (AUC: 0.996). During the evaluation, the model that considered demographic and clinical factors along with insulin had a high accuracy rate for detecting IR (AUC: 0.978) and consistently high negative predictive values (90%96.3%) for all models. Conclusion: Models based on demographic and clinical factors can help find kids and teens who are moderately or highly likely to have IR and would benefit from a fasting insulin test.

Source: journals.lww.com/jpgn/abstract/2023/12000/predicting_insulin_resistance_in_a_pediatric.19.aspx

Go here to read the rest:

Predictive Factors for Insulin Resistance in Pediatric Obesity: A Comprehensive Analysis - Physician's Weekly

Pediatrics

Locals partner to open pediatric clinic in Brookhaven – Daily Leader – Dailyleader

Published 2:58 pm Thursday, December 28, 2023

BROOKHAVEN Ole Brook Kids Pediatric Clinic Co-owners Kayla Thurman and Amber Martin hope to serve the community with their new business. Both are certified nurse practitioners. Martin has 24 years of pediatric experience and Thurman has 11 years of pediatric experience.

The new pediatric clinic will open at 301-C US51 S, hopefully, by the end of January. The location can be found on Dr. Louie Wilkins Drive just south of Walgreens.

For the last four or five years, Thurman and Martin have shared a small office space and worked closely together. Thurman said she saw ways to help the local community and an opportunity to fill a need for a purely pediatric clinic in Brookhaven. She shared her idea with Martin and they went in together to open up the practice.

We would see so many patients who didnt have any other places to go but didnt need an emergency room or adult urgent care. We are pediatric trained and will offer something new, Thurman said. In the last year, it just came up. It was a God thing. It fell in place perfectly. We needed a physician to partner with us and my preacher recommended someone I used to know. Every piece has been put together. It is a huge leap of faith. Now our idea and dream is a reality.

Ole Brook Kids will be located in a former dentist office. Renovations have been mostly cosmetic and the once red brick exterior was painted now snow white. Martin said the building is owned by Hunter Posey who happened to have the perfect space for them. It all fell into place.

The clinic will treat fevers, coughs, acute illnesses, minor injuries and simple wound repairs. Their mission statement states they understand illness and injuries dont always happen between 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and will work to provide care outside of those hours. Martin said they plan to be open with longer hours during the week and be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. Wellness visits, sports physicals and vaccinations will also be offered by the clinic.

Thurman and Martin have practiced in Brookhaven long enough that Martin is confident they will have a client base to start.

The connections we have made have been remarkable. It has fallen in place. This is a community that is well connected with people excited to be a part of a small business, Martin said. We felt led. The support in the few things we have put out there has been humbling and amazing. We care about our patients and look to our work as service.

Thurman said they plan to be Big enough to serve you and small enough to know you.

Careers of service

Thurman received her bachelors of science in nursing from the University of Mississippi Medical Center in 2012 and started her career in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at UMMC. She earned her masters of science in nursing from the University of Alabama Birmingham as a pediatric nurse practitioner in 2015. She is originally from Monticello.

Her career took her to Blair E. Batson Childrens hospital to work in the Pediatric Emergency Department. Thurmans husband is Dillon Thurman and they have three children Kinley, John Luke and Fisher Thurman. She is an active member of Grace Life Church in Brookhaven. Outside of nursing, she enjoys watching her childrens activities and spending time with family.

Thurmans interest in pediatrics began in middle school. She said in high school as soon as she got her drivers license she would drive up to Jackson to volunteer at the childrens hospital.

Working with kids you take care of the whole family. You have a fulfillment and get to watch them grow. You are with them a while, Thurman said. I wanted to come back home and serve my own community. I had a dream of opening up my own clinic. I presented the idea to Martin and she said yes so here we are. We are trusting God and His will. He has worked it all out.

One of the reasons she enjoys working with pediatrics is due to the resilience of kids. They tend to bounce back faster and children offer a challenge because they do not always fit the box.

Martin graduated with a bachelors of science in nursing from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1999. She began her career working in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at UMMC. In 2012, Martin continued her education and earned a masters of science in nursing from the University of South Alabama. She is originally from Gulfport.

She is married to Brad Martin. Their children are Makayla, Mallory and Maddox. All three children have kept Martin busy with local activities and sports. They are active members of Calvary Baptist Church.

Outside of nursing, Martin serves as an adjunct teacher for the Mississippi College nursing program. She teaches courses in registered nursing, the bachelors of science in nursing and masters of science in nursing programs. Her time at UMMC prepared her for pediatric medicine.

I always wanted to be a nurse and loved neonatal care. It all led to pediatrics. When my husband was in school in Georgia I worked at a hospital there. They encouraged me to go back to school to do this and I have loved it ever since, Martin said. It has been about connections with people. One door opens and then you step through it. You see children a lot. I had always thought about having my own pediatric clinic. It brings back your passion when you have ownership of it.

Read this article:

Locals partner to open pediatric clinic in Brookhaven - Daily Leader - Dailyleader