Dyson Day Examines Decade of Decline for Children in Monroe County
Monroe County offers some of the best pediatric health care resources in the country. Yet a recent report from The Children’s Agenda revealed some distressing results – in 2009, children in Monroe County had worse outcomes in a number of important areas of health, development and success than they did in 1999. At the 12th annual Anne E. Dyson Memorial Grand Rounds, set for Wednesday, March 7, local health care providers will explore this troubling issue in depth to understand how to better serve our community’s children and youth.
“Our community has a lot to be proud of. We’re one of the most affordable and philanthropic cities in the nation. Unfortunately, children and families across Monroe County are struggling with many serious but preventable problems, including an alarmingly high infant mortality rate, an increase in reports of child abuse and neglect and an unacceptably low percentage of third-graders meeting grade-level expectations,” said Jeffrey Kaczorowski, M.D., associate professor of Pediatrics at Golisano Children’s Hospital at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC). “Any community would want better results than the downward trend that we’re seeing.”
Kaczorowski, executive director at The Children's Agenda and principal investigator of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Community Pediatrics Training Initiative, will lead the talk with Larry Marx, strategy and development director at The Children's Agenda. The 8 a.m. Grand Rounds presentation titled “A Decade of Decline for Monroe County's Children: How Will We Respond?” will take place at the Class of ’62 Auditorium at URMC.
At Grand Rounds, Kaczorowski and Marx will discuss findings from The Children’s Agenda report and will recommend some shifts in public policy to help reverse these trends. They will also encourage doctors and health care professionals to expand their advocacy efforts. To view the full “Decade of Decline” report published by The Children’s Agenda, visit http://www.thechildrensagenda.org/pdf/2011StatusReport.pdf.
Following Grand Rounds, from 9 to 11 a.m., residents, Pediatric Links with the Community (PLC) faculty and staff, and other community leaders will gather for an informal reception in the Flaum Atrium at URMC. Residents from the Child Advocacy Resident Education (CARE) Track will present their community projects as part of the poster session during the reception.
The PLC Program was founded in 1996 as a resident education program in community health and child advocacy. Each academic year, pediatric, medicine-pediatric, family medicine residents and nurse practitioner students participate in a two-week community-based rotation. During this rotation, residents and students learn first-hand about critical community factors affecting child health, while interacting with medical and non-medical providers at more than 50 community-based organizations to provide health care and education for under-served children and families in Rochester. The rotation serves as a connection between the residents/students and the community they serve.
In 2000, the PLC Program and Golisano Children's Hospital were awarded a grant from the national Dyson Foundation which allowed the program to expand resident education to include the CARE Track. The CARE Track has facilitated additional partnerships between second and third year residents and the community, developing critical skills for residents while also benefiting children in Rochester as each resident works on a two-year longitudinal project.