Harnessing the Humanities to Foster Staff Resilience: An Annual Arts and Humanities Rounds at a Children's Hospital.

Working in healthcare can be fulfilling, meaningful, and sometimes exhausting. Creative endeavors may be one way to foster personal resilience in healthcare providers. In this article, we describe an annual arts and humanities program, the Ludwig Rounds, developed at a large academic children's hospital. The event encourages staff to reflect on resilience by sharing their creative work and how it had an impact on their clinical careers. The multidisciplinary forum also allows staff to connect and learn about each other. We discuss the development of the program, its format and logistics, and lessons learned over the past 15 years.

Feasibility of Using Bacteriophage Therapy to Reduce Morbidity and Mortality Associated with Spinal Epidural Abscesses.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to determine the feasibility of using bacteriophage therapeutics in spinal epidural abscess (SEA) by reviewing the causes and outcomes of SEA at a single institution and testing a bacteriophage for activity against preserved SEA clinical isolates. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Medical records were reviewed of patients that received incision and drainage for SEA at a single medical center. Causative organisms, incidence of coinciding bacteremia and outcomes were recorded. A subset of SEA patients (N = 11), that had preserved clinical isolates, were assessed to evaluate if a bacteriophage therapeutic had ample activity to those isolates as seen with spot tests and growth inhibition assays. RESULTS: Staphylococcus aureus was the predominate bacterial cause (71%) and bacteremia was associated with 96% of S. aureus SEA. Over 50% of the patients either died within three months, had recurrence of their infection, required repeat debridement, or had long term sequalae. A single bacteriophage had positive spot tests for all the S. aureus clinical isolates and inhibited bacterial growth for more than 24 hours for 9 of the 11 (82%) clinical isolates. CONCLUSION: SEA is associated with significant mortality and morbidity making this a potential indication for adjuvant bacteriophage therapeutics. Since S. aureus is the predominate cause of SEA and most cases are associated bacteremia this creates a potential screening and treatment platform for Staphylococcal bacteriophages therapeutics, allowing for potential pilot studies to be devised.

Physician well-being: Special considerations in pediatrics.

Helping children realize their potential brings both great joy and a powerful sense of meaning to the lives of clinicians. Nevertheless, working with children and families can place unique stresses on pediatric practitioners, and can pose particular challenges to the personal well-being of those who care for ill and injured children. This paper details the unique stressors that pediatricians experience, as well as the positive factors that shape the work of pediatricians caring for children and adolescents.

Building a Global Health Workforce in North America.

Globally, significant progress in health equity for children has been made, but much work remains. This article discusses why and how the pediatric community in North America is building a global health (GH) workforce, for domestic "local global" and "international global child health" settings. With a focus on children and families, training this workforce entails attaining GH competencies in medical students, residents, fellows, allied medical professionals, and upskilling current practitioners. The authors highlight currently available training approaches and resources for each group. Global child health is now within the purview of every pediatrician in North America.

The pediatrics milestones: initial evidence for their use as learning road maps for residents.

OBJECTIVE: As the next step in competency-based medical education, the Pediatrics Milestone Project seeks to provide a learner-centered approach to training and assessment. To help accomplish this goal, this study sought to determine how pediatric residents understand, interpret, and respond to the Pediatrics Milestones. METHODS: Cognitive interviews with 48 pediatric residents from all training levels at 2 training programs were conducted. Each participant reviewed one Pediatrics Milestone document (PMD). Eight total Pediatrics Milestones, chosen for their range of complexity, length, competency domain, and primary author, were included in this study. Six residents, 2 from each year of residency training, reviewed each PMD. Interviews were transcribed and coded using inductive methods, and codes were grouped into themes that emerged. RESULTS: Four major themes emerged through coding and analysis: 1) the participants' degree of understanding of the PMDs is sufficient, often deep; 2) the etiology of participants' understanding is rooted in their experiences; 3) there are qualities of the PMD that may contribute to or detract from understanding; and 4) participants apply their understanding by noting the PMD describes a developmental progression that can provide a road map for learning. Additionally, we learned that residents are generally comfortable being placed in the middle of a series of developmental milestones. Two minor themes focusing on interest and practicality were also identified. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides initial evidence for the Pediatrics Milestones as learner-centered documents that can be used for orientation, education, formative feedback, and, ultimately, assessment.

A new framework for quality partnerships in Children's Hospitals.

Children's hospitals and their affiliated departments of pediatrics often pursue separate programs in quality and safety; by integrating these programs, they can accelerate progress. Hospital executives and pediatric department chairs from 14 children's hospitals have been exploring practical approaches for integrating quality programs. Three components provide focus: (1) alignment of quality priorities and resources across the organizations; (2) education and training for physicians in the science of improvement; and (3) professional development and career progression for physicians in recognition of quality-improvement activities. Process and resource requirements are identified for each component, and specific, actionable steps are identified. The action steps are arrayed on a continuum from basic to advanced integration. The resulting matrix serves as an "integration framework," useful to a hospital and its pediatric academic department at any stage of integration for assessing its current state, plotting a path toward further integration, tracking its progress, and identifying potential collaborators and models of advanced integration. The framework contributes to health care's quality-improvement movement in multiple ways: it addresses a basic impediment to quality and safety improvement; it is an implementable model for integrating quality programs; it offers career-advancement potential for physicians interested in quality; it helps optimize investments in quality and safety; and it can be applied both within a single children's hospital and across multiple children's hospitals. Widespread adoption of the integration framework could have a transformative effect on the children's hospital sector, not the least of which is improved quality and safety on a large scale.