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, MPH 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

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, MD Jess Babal, MD

Interests include pediatric residency education; research in burnout, wellbeing and thriving for trainees and faculty; narrative medicine; learning and workplace environment factors that promote thriving and joy in work; mentorship.

Current and past projects include:

Exploration of conceptual understanding of wellbeing for pediatric residents
Pediatric Resident Burnout and Resilience Study Consortium
Practice and Orientation to Wellness, Empowerment, and Resiliency (POWER) study: Evaluation of a resiliency skills curriculum for early medical students
Parent perceptions of trainees in the pediatric clinic
Gender Differences in Pediatric Residency Personal Statements

John 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.

Megan Neuman, MD

Clinical Assistant Professor Megan Neuman, MD joined the department in August 2015 and became the medical director for continuity clinics in January 2016. Current projects include:

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.
Piloted a mindful practice course available to all residents, in the fall of 2017 and spring of 2018.

Caroline Paul, MD

Caroline R. Paul MD has developed an interest/niche in medical educational scholarship. Her primary and underlying interest is teaching; this has translated to various domains of medical education scholarship. She enjoys collaborative relationships with experts particularly in the areas of evaluation and assessment, validity evidence and the development of instruments of measure, and in curriculum development and innovation. She is involved in both quantitative and qualitative medical education research. Some products of her strong interests are reflected in her teaching presentations at PAS in the form of poster and podium presentations, didactics to PAS academic fellows, and workshops relating to a variety of medical education scholarship. While she seeks to have her medical scholarship and teaching work encompass a range of clinical topics, her current interests are in pediatric otoscopy, health disparities and health equity, and teaching practices. She has published pediatric otoscopy curricula for students and for residents and has developed a peer-reviewed validated checklist to be used in the pediatric ear exam, as well as an online learning resource for the diagnosis and treatment of acute otitis media.

GPAM Faculty TOP 25 teachers 2017-18

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 2017-2018 academic year!

Brittany Allen, MD
Paula Cody, MD, MPH
Kathleen DeSantes, MD
John Frohna, MD, MPH
Laura Houser, MD
Megan Moreno, MD, MSEd, MPH
Dipesh Navsaria, MPH, MSLIS, MD
Amy Plumb, MD
Meriel Rongstad, MD
Jeff Sleeth, MD
Shravani Vundavalli, MD
Robin Wright, MD
Kok-Peng Yu, MD
Chrissy Zimmerman, MD

Quality Improvement

Sanjeev Jain, MD, FAAP Sanjeev Jain, MD

Dr. Jain’s interests include using the EHR obesity registry to understand and improve care for patients with obesity. Dr. Jain has presented his work at the Pediatric Academic Societies meeting and APA QI meeting. Recent projects include:

A longitudinal evaluation of the obesity registry and patient outcomes

Mala Mathur, MD, MPH Madhulika 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, 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

Matthew Anderson, MD

Brittney Allen, MD – view all publications

Gail 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

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

Susan Ehrlich, MD

John Frohna, MD, MPH – view all publications

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

Lindsay Geier, MD – view all publications

Julie Gocey, MD

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

Mala Mathur, MD, MPH – view all publications

Gwen McIntosh, MD, MPH

Thomas Meier, MD

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

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

Megan Neuman, MD – view all publications

Caroline Paul, MD

Karen Pletta, MD – view all publications

Amy Plumb, MD – view all publications

Prasanna Raman, MD – view all publications

Meriel Rongstad, MD

Emily Ruedinger, MD, MEd – view all publications

Jeffrey Sleeth, MD – view all publications

Patricia Staats, MD – view all publications

Amy Stockhausen, MD – view all publications

Barbara Strand, MD, FAAP

Shravani Vundavalli, MD – view all publications

Robin Wright, 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