Health Professionals & PEHSU Experts Gather in Kansas City.
PEHSU’s Childhood Cancer & the Environment program is a national program that educates health professionals and communities about environmental influences on childhood cancers, led by Mark Miller MD, MPH. The identified need by pediatric oncology providers led to a full day workshop with staff from Baylor College of Medicine/Texas Children’s Hospital, where a consultative service is under development to assist clinicians address questions related child cancer and the environment. Now, that idea is spreading.
During the recent March 7th training for Children’s Mercy Hospital staff in Kansas City, Nikki Wood, DO and Omar Shakeel, MD (pediatric oncologists from Children’s Mercy Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine) presented on developing pediatric oncology consultative services and taking a pediatric oncology environmental health history. Other presenters included Dr. Miller; leading childhood cancer researchers Catherine Metayer, MD, PhD from University of California, Berkeley, and Joseph Wiemels, PhD from University of Southern California; Brian Linde, MD from Kaiser Permanente; Perry Sheffield MD, MPH and Hannah Thompson, MD, MPH both Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (Region 2 PEHSU); Nsedu Obot Witherspoon, MPH, Executive Director of Children’s Environmental Health Network; and Alexandra Zissu, journalist and mother to a child cancer survivor. Presentations included topics like Chemical Exposures and Childhood Cancers, Childhood Cancer Prevention, and Survivor Impacts from Environmental Exposures.
The range of expertise and experience enriched the day’s content. For example, Alexandra Zissu presented a personal story from her perspective as a parent to a child who has fought and survived cancer twice, while Perry Sheffield, MD, MPH offered a clinical view on air pollution, sharing examples of multiple laws on pollution reduction in New York City that have led to a 50% decrease in pollution from 2000 to 2019.
There are few things worse as a parent than seeing your child sick and feeling helpless to protect their health. After hearing Dr. Shakeel and Dr. Wood speak about engaging clinicians in addressing environmental exposures, Ms. Zissu thanked them and remarked that from a parent perspective, “I feel so seen.” The Childhood Cancer and the Environment project empowers parents and health professionals by providing needed information on environmental hazards related to children’s health.
“I feel so seen.” -Alexandra Zissu, Journalist & Mother to a Childhood Cancer Survior