TORONTO — Pediatrics is facing a “workforce crisis,” an expert told Healio at the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting. Last month Sallie Permar, MD, PhD, chair of the department of pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York and pediatrician-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, co-authored an op-ed on the website STAT regarding a lack of medical school graduates choosing to pursue pediatrics. According to the commentary, nearly 30% of U.S. pediatric residency programs were not filled and the total number of graduates applying for pediatrics ..read more

TORONTO — A menu of options helped providers identify families’ desire for social resources better than a screening tool, according to findings presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting. Researchers randomly assigned nearly 4,000 adult caregivers of pediatric patients in one ED and two primary care clinics to use either a traditional social risk screening tool, a resource menu or no assessment to determine their desire for social resources. Participants using the resource menu were 9.4% more likely to request resources than those using the screening tool, the study ..read more

TORONTO — Shorter courses of antibiotics were associated with increased odds of reinfection and death among infants treated in the NICU for Escherichia coli bacteremia who were not evaluated for meningitis, a study showed. Researchers who presented the findings at the Pediatric Academic Societies meeting said providers should consider a minimum duration of 14 days of antibiotic therapy for these patients. Many studies have showed that shorter courses of antibiotics are just as effective as longer courses for certain infections, including those that impact children — an idea that has ..read more

TORONTO — Children with high blood pressure are more likely to be at risk for a stroke, heart attack or other major cardiac event later in life, according to research presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting. High blood pressure affects 6% of children and is often unrecognized, according to Cal Robinson, MD, a pediatric nephrology fellow and PhD student at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, and colleagues. Robinson told Healio that the goal of the study was to better understand the long-term risks that children with high blood pressure will face. “Previous ..read more

Ramin Tadayoni, MD, PhD, newly elected president of the European Society of Retina Specialists and highly esteemed member of the global retina community, died unexpectedly on April 20. Tadayoni was a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Paris, chair of the ophthalmology department at the Rothschild Foundation Hospital and Lariboisière and Saint-Louis University Hospital in Paris, and director of the French Myopia Institute. He was the author of more than 200 scientific papers and multiple chapters in prestigious ophthalmology textbooks. His important contributions to research ..read more

Influenza-related hospitalization rates begin to increase in patients at a younger age than previously assumed, indicating that prevention strategies should be encouraged for younger patients, researchers found. “The study was prompted by limited existing research on how the burden of influenza varies with increasing age,” Ian McGovern, MPH, associate director of the Center of Outcomes Research and Epidemiology at CSL Seqirus, told Healio. “While the focus of influenza interventions and public health initiatives in adults is often among those over the age of 65 or with ..read more

Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush University Medical Center announced new leadership roles for five orthopedic physicians, according to a press release. Brian J. Cole, MD, MBA, sports medicine surgeon and managing partner of Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush, has been appointed to acting chair of the department of orthopedic surgery. Cole has held several leadership roles at Rush since joining in 1997. He replaces Joshua J. Jacobs, MD, who served as acting chair for 16 years. Jacobs will transition to a new role as director of the Rush Arthritis and Orthopaedics Institute, according to the release. “I ..read more

Patients with stroke history had significantly poorer CV prevention profiles compared with patients with history of MI, with pronounced disparities based on race and neighborhood deprivation status, according to study results. “Despite stroke and myocardial infarction survivors sharing similar cardiovascular risk profiles, our analysis reveals that patients with stroke have consistently worse risk factor control compared with patients with myocardial infarction across several risk vascular targets, including blood pressure and low-density lipoprotein control, as well as statin and ..read more

Researchers have created a novel tool that predicts a person’s risk for cardiovascular complications after bone marrow transplantation. Investigators created the Cardiovascular Registry in Bone Marrow Transplantation (CARE-BMT), which collects information on patients who underwent transplant at University of Michigan Health or Rush University. Analyses of data from more than 3,300 patients who underwent BMT between 2008 and 2019 showed 4.1% of patients experienced cardiovascular events within 100 days, and 13.9% developed such complications within 5 years. Researchers used data from the ..read more

Increased exposure to nitrogen dioxide from U.S. stoves may be responsible for approximately 50,000 cases of current pediatric asthma, with marginalized groups incurring more exposure than the national average, according to a study. “We have studied greenhouse gas emissions and indoor pollution from gas appliances for a decade,” Rob Jackson, PhD, professor of Earth system science at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and senior fellow, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and Precourt Institute for Energy, said during a press briefing. “This research has taken ..read more