Department of Pediatrics
University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health

Scholarly Work

Scholarly work in GPAM focuses on work to advance child health. This work includes traditional research, with specific areas of focus around health services, digital health as well as medical education. Our scholarly work also includes a focus on QI, leveraging the opportunity that our Electronic Health Record and patient registries offers for this work. We have a strong teaching focus in our division, with several faculty doing medical education research as well as providing innovative teaching opportunities in advocacy and global health.

Research

Elizabeth Cox, MD PhD

Elizabeth Cox, MD, PhD

Launched in 2007, the Program of Research on Outcomes for Kids (PROKids) is a health services research team whose major goal is to improve the children’s outcomes by implementing family-centered interventions and evaluating these interventions from the perspectives of children and families. Under the leadership of Dr. Elizabeth Cox, PROKids not only conducts original research (over $4.6 million in federal and non-federal research funding since 2009) but also serves as a key collaborator or consultant for other investigators at UW and beyond.

 

Megan Moreno, MD, MSEd, MPH

Megan Moreno, MD, MSEd, MPH

The mission of the Social Media & Adolescent Health Research Team is to advance society’s understanding of the relationships between media and adolescent health towards educating adolescents, providing better care, and developing innovations in adolescent healthcare.

Education

 

Jessica Babal, MDJess Babal, MD

Jess Babal, MD is a general pediatrician at the 20 South Park Clinic in Madison, Wisconsin. Her academic work examines the culture of medicine, the healthcare professions, and seeks to understand workplace and policy contributors to well-being. She also aims to advance the medical humanities in the educational and professional setting (e.g. narrative medicine, reflective and creative writing, the creative arts, history and philosophy) as a way of shifting medical culture away from relying purely on mechanistic thinking.

Her publications have addressed the impact of a storytelling event on resident wellness; factors that contribute to pediatrician wellness; factors that contribute to student pharmacist wellness; associations of gender or race with learning and teaching evaluations and the residency application process.

Along with her colleagues, she is currently editing a textbook, “Understanding and Cultivating Well-being for Pediatricians in the Digital Age,” and she teaches the 2-week medical student elective: Introduction to the Medical Humanities.
John Frohna, MD, MPHJohn Frohna, MD, Residency Program Director and Vice Chair for Education

As a program director for the past 20 years, I have to say that what I love most about this role is my ability to get to know and mentor residents over their time in the program (and beyond!). I have always been impressed by the commitment that our department chair and faculty have to resident education; everyone truly values the work of the residents and works hard to make sure we graduate the best pediatricians possible. As director, I am not content with the status quo – I want this program to continue to evolve and find innovative ways to teach residents. The UW Pediatric Residency Program provides training in general pediatrics and all pediatric subspecialties.

Program aims

  • Prepare highly skilled pediatricians who are driven, critical thinkers, and leaders and who successfully work to improve the care of children.
  • Foster a commitment to advocacy for the advancement of child health priorities at the local, national, and/or international level.
  • Engage residents in program evaluation and improvement and in shaping their own residency experience to prepare them for their careers.
  • Provide a progressive learning environment that supports collaboration across levels of training and among specialties.
Andrea N. Jones, MDAnde Jones, MD

Ande Jones joined the GPAM division in 2017, after serving as chief resident here in Madison. After a few years working as a general pediatrician to Madison’s east side at UW Health Union Corners Clinic, Ande was delighted to rejoin the residency education group in 2020 in becoming the Continuity Clinic Director. She is passionate about teaching medical students and residents in her clinic, and is looking forward to continuing to work on strengthening residents’ outpatient education experience. She will continue projects working on:

  • Biannual reports on resident clinical activity, include data on number, age and gender of patients and types of visits, with next steps to focus on making continuity clinic experiences more robust, to include adequate diversity of exposures and learning, as well as improving continuity.
  • Residents receive family/patient feedback in spring and fall, which are incorporated into their semi-annual reviews.

Additionally, Ande assists in teaching wellness session as part of the Practice and Orientation to Wellness, Empowerment, and Resiliency (POWER) study: Evaluation of a resiliency skills curriculum for early medical students.

GPAM Faculty TOP 25 teachers 2019-20

Each year our pediatric department asks trainees to vote on top teachers and the top 25 teachers are named. We are proud of the GPAM faculty who were voted as top teachers for the 2019-2020 academic year!

  • Brittany Allen, MD
  • Tim Chybowski, MD
  • Paula Cody, MD, MPH
  • Laura Holt, MD
  • Laura Houser, MD
  • Lalitha Iyer, MD
  • Sanjeev Jain, MD
  • Ande Jones, MD
  • Troy Kleist, MD
  • Katherine Lemon, MD
  • Megan Neuman, MD
  • Amy Plumb, MD

Quality Improvement

 

Mala Mathur, MD, MPHMala Mathur, MD, MPH

Dr. Mathur’s interest in quality improvement includes a population health based approach to address gaps in care between evidence based guidelines and current ambulatory pediatric practice. Over the years, she has worked on quality improvement projects including: implementing routine developmental screening within the medical home, addressing health literacy within ambulatory care clinics, creating workflows during well child checks for transition of youth from pediatric to adult health care, developing workflows and EMR changes to implement chlamydia screening, and promoting care coordination for youth with ADHD through Shared Plans of Care. She has also served as faculty for three statewide/regional quality improvement collaborative projects to increase HPV vaccination rates through the Wisconsin Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr. Mathur has presented her work at the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting, the American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference and Exhibition and the Wisconsin Collaborative for Health Care Quality Assembly Meeting.

Recent and current projects include:

  • Boosting Primary Care Awareness and Treatment for Childhood Hypertension: Through national quality improvement collaborative and local partners, we are working to increase awareness of elevated blood pressures during routine ambulatory office visits and creating workflows with our pediatric subspecialty colleagues on how to manage these elevated blood pressures and treat pediatric hypertension.
  • Assessing Acceptability to learn about Mindfulness within the Pediatric Medical Home: Conducted a survey of 3,000 parents across the U.S. to assess their knowledge, beliefs and willingness to learn about Mindfulness within the Pediatric Medical Home. In addition, used survey data to assess willingness of parents with children diagnosed with asthma to learn about Mindfulness techniques as a way to reduce stress and improve asthma symptoms.
Karen Pletta, MDKaren Pletta, MD

Dr Karen Pletta’s primary academic interest is in pediatric asthma. She is working with the GPAM Asthma quality team on work flows to increase Asthma Action Plans to patients during well child visits and to improve asthma outreach. She has presented posters related to pediatric asthma quality at the AAP NCE conference in 2016, local and statewide conferences, the Pediatric Academic Society 2018 and will be presenting at the AAP NCE conference 2018. Recent and current projects include:

  • longitudinal evaluation of the EHR Asthma Registry and patient outcomes
  • Case-control study evaluating GPAM asthma patients who did and did not have ER visits over the past 2 years ER to determine if there are factors that could reduce need for asthma ER visits.
  • Evaluating Asthma Action Plans effectiveness/value for families for work days, school days and home/daycare management.

Recent Publications

Brittney Allen, MD – view all publications

Jessica Babal, MD – view all publications

David Bernhardt, MD – view all publications

Deirdre Burns, MD – view all publications

Timothy Chybowski, MD

Paula Cody, MD, MPH

Elizabeth Cox, MD, PhD – view all publications

Patricia Deffner-Valley, MD – view all publications

Cristina Delgadillo, MD

Kathleen DeSantes, MD – view all publications

Theresa Dulski, MD, MPH

M. Bruce Edmonson, MD, MPH – view all publications

John Frohna, MD, MPH – view all publications

Anthony Garcia-Prats, MD, MSc – view all publications

Julie Gocey – view all publications

Karen Hillery, MD

Laura Holt, MD – view all publications

Laura Houser, MD – view all publications

Lalitha Iyer, MD

Sanjeev Jain, MD – view all publications

Andrea Jones, MD – view all publications

Mollie Kane, MD

Catherine Kelley, MD – view all publications

Troy Kleist, MD

Steven Koslov, MD

Katherine Lemon, MD

Allison Lindell, MD

Kristen Marten, DO

Mala Mathur, MD, MPH – view all publications

Gwen McIntosh, MD, MPH

Megan Moreno, MD, MSEd, MPH – view all publications

Jennifer Naidu, MD

Dipesh Navsaria, MPH, MSLIS, MD – view all publications

Megan Neuman, MD – view all publications

Karen Pletta, MD – view all publications

Amy Plumb, MD – view all publications

Prasanna Raman, MD – view all publications

Meriel Rongstad, MD

M. Regina Rosa, MD, MPH, FAAP

Emily Ruedinger, MD, MEd – view all publications

Alexandra Schultz, MD

Jeffrey Sleeth, MD – view all publications

Amy Stockhausen, MD – view all publications

Barbara Strand, MD, FAAP

Jessica Vaughan, MD

Robin Wright, MD

Megan Yanny, MD

Christine Zimmerman, MD – view all publications

Research Groups

Current Grant Support

Elizabeth Cox, MD, PhD

Megan Moreno, MD, MSEd, MPH

Wisconsin Rural Physician Residency Assistance Program (WRPRAP), “Resident learning objectives for a rotation in a rural community pediatric practice” (ongoing). DeSantes, PI