Past President's Message
December 2009
Thanksgiving and "Presidential Projects"
Thanksgiving
It is the season of giving thanks and after returning from the recent APA Board meeting I am once again inspired by all the great work members are doing on behalf of kids and families. What I love about this organization is that it is an active organization in the work of our Committees on Education, Health Care Delivery, Public Policy and Advocacy, and Research, and in our Core Activities.
APA is not an organization where you pay your annual dues and wonder where the money goes. I believe there are many products and outcomes to show for our relatively low dues. It is also an organization where there are many avenues for involvement and an organization with a history of supporting the good ideas of members and putting them into action. The Core Activities all started from APA supporting a member champion to develop and implement a program to further our mission. Thanks for all the work you do and we welcome your continued feedback and involvement.
Presidential Projects
It is traditional for the APA President to have a "Presidential Project." I thought I would provide an update on my two projects:
- Starting Early: A Life Course Perspective on Child Health Disparities - Developing a Research Action Agenda
- The APA Oral History Project
Starting Early: A Life Course Perspective on Child Health Disparities
The Institutes of Medicine report on Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care in 2003 highlighted persistent disparities in health and health care. Of the 103 studies on health disparities discussed in the report, only 5 focused on disparities among children. Thus this past year as APA President I partnered with Renee Jenkins, APA member and then AAP President, to organize a conference to address child health disparities with the goal of establishing a research action agenda to move the field. We secured funding from 10 foundations and organizations and held a conference last year bringing together 70 multidisciplinary researchers, practitioners and funders. This resulted in a summary paper on the conceptualization of health disparities across the lifespan addressing health status, health care, and health outcomes and a research action agenda to address child health disparities.
Commissioned papers and the research recommendations from the conference were published last month as a supplement to Pediatrics1 and JAMA2 published a commentary on the policy issues. Please take a look at these publications. We hope that it stimulates discussion, research and action to really address child health disparities.
The APA Oral History Project
2010 marks the 50th anniversary of the APA. In 1952 a group of outpatient clinic directors, led by Barbara Korsch, began gathering at the American Pediatric Society and Society for Pediatric Research meeting to discuss issues of generalist physicians. A survey of outpatient clinic directors was published in 1959 and in 1960 a constitution for the Association for Ambulatory Pediatric Services was drafted by Philip Ambuel, Morris Green, Fred Blodgett, and Bob Haggerty. 56 individuals accepted invitations to join as charter members with $5 annual dues. Since then the APA has changed its name twice, grown to nearly 2000 members, and the field of Academic General Pediatrics has become established. The APA has spawned other organizations, but continues to include generalist and academics at its core including general pediatrics, adolescent medicine, pediatric emergency medicine, developmental behavioral pediatrics, child abuse, hospitalist medicine, environmental health, and others.
As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of this vibrant organization, it is important to document our history from the founders of our organization and learn from their wisdom as we prepare for the future. There are four histories thus far published about the APA and they are wonderful reading (go to www.academicpeds.org, click on "About Us" and "History of the APA").3-6 Last year I initiated the APA Oral History Project to further document APA's history by interviewing founders of the organization. I wished to assess the views of APA founders regarding lessons learned and future challenges and opportunities ahead for APA and the field of academic pediatrics.
Thus far, nine APA Past Presidents and founders have been videotaped including:
| Barbara Korsch | an APA founder |
| Richard W. Olmsted | APA first president, 1961-62 |
| Robert J. Haggerty | APA 3rd president, 1963-64 |
| Joel J. Alpert | APA 9th president, 1969-70 |
| John H. Kennell | APA 10th president, 1970-71 |
| Katherine S. Lobach | APA 13th president, 1973-74 |
| Evan Charney | APA 14th president, 1974-75 |
| Frederick North, Jr. | APA 15th president, 1975-76 |
| Barbara Starfield | APA 20th president, 1980-81 |
At APA's 50th anniversary celebration at the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting in Vancouver, May 2010, interview clips will be available for viewing. A highlight video is being produced by Ken Roberts which should be a special treat. Claiborne Dungy has also organized the APA written archives which will be displayed. While the Oral History Project has thus far focused on the first 20 APA Presidents, in Vancouver we hope to get our archives up-to-date by videotaping the next 30 Presidents and our wonderful staff, Marge and George Degnon, who have been with APA for 30 years!
This has been a fun project and has forced me to learn new video and computer skills mostly taught to me by my children! My 12 year old son created this for us to get in the mood for our 50th…. Enjoy.
http://animoto.com/play/1G3ZiecGs6ATVdmfYalq4w
References:
- Starting Early: A Life Course Perspective on Child Health Disparities: A Research Action Agenda, Co-Editors: Cheng TL, Jenkins RR, Pediatrics. November 2009;124:S161-261.
- Cheng TL, Jenkins RR. Health Disparities across the lifespan: where are the children? JAMA 2009;301;2491-92.
- Alpert JJ. The Ambulatory Pediatric Association. Pediatrics. 1995;95(3):422-426.
- Haggerty RJ, Green M. History of academic general and ambulatory pediatrics. Pediatric Research. 2003 Jan;53(1):188-97.
- Blodgett FM, Olmsted RW. History of the Ambulatory Pediatric Association: The Early Years. Ambulatory Pediatric Association, April 1971.
- Stein REK. The History of the Ambulatory Pediatric Association: 30 years of Reflection and Growth. Ambulatory Pediatric Association, February 1990.
Tina L. Cheng
Immediate Past President
Academic Pediatric Association
