"A Culture of Advocacy": Leonard P. Rome CATCH Visiting Professorship Advocacy Program

Dr. Barry Zuckerman, the Joel and Barbara Alpert Professor and Chair of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine, and Founder of the National Center, Medical-Legal Partnership,
came to Virginia for a three-day visiting professorship, March 18-20, 2009. While here, he met with residents, faculty, community leaders, students and others dedicated to child health at  UVA and the Medical College of Virginia (MCV).

The program, titled "A Culture of Advocacy", sought to:

• raise awareness of the importance of advocacy for child health,
• to promote dialogue between the health care systems and other stakeholders for children's health, and
• to find ways to further develop a culture of advocacy in our health care systems and our communities

While in Virginia, Dr. Zuckerman presented Grand Rounds: "Transforming Pediatric Health Care to Reduce Health Disparities," describing how stress and other effects of poverty, acting through hormonal pathways and other mechanisms, become embedded physiciologically in children exposed to inadequte resources and excessive stresses during childhood. He also met with pediatric faculty, residents, law students, community leaders and others to encourage dialogue and develop strategies for increasing collaboration and advocacy initiatives in Virginia to reduce the effects of poverty on child health.

Dr. Zuckerman is a nationally recognized leader in pediatrics who has focused his career on the social determinants of child health and strategies to improve them. He developed the medical-legal partnerhsip model and 80 programs now provide access to legal aid in the medical setting. He is at the forefront of building effective interdisciplinary and community partnerships at the local, state, and national levels. The visiting professorship was funded through the Leonard P. Rome Visiting Professorship CATCH Grant program, through the American Academy of Pediatrics, as well as by support from the University of Virginia Department of Pediatrics and the Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Pediatrics.

Dr. Zuckerman Meets with Local CHAP Teams

While visiting Virginia, Dr. Zuckerman took time to meet with the Charlottesville CHAP Team to brainstorm ideas about how to further develop and refine our medical-legal partnership program. He also met with the Richmond CHAP Team and with Michele Peters, Esq., who is in process of establishing a medical-legal partnership in Norfolk, VA, in collaboration with the Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters.

The VA MLP is now re-energized and focused on developing our individual programs and our state network to serve families in need most effectively. In particular, we are exploring how to develop a systemic advocacy agenda for the coming year, and how to expand our services to subspecialty populations.

Charlottesville CHAP Team pictured above (left to right): Alex Gulotta, Esq., Dr. Barry Zuckerman, Greg Nelsen (back row); Dr. Diane Pappas, Liz Moore, Carolyn Pointer, Esq. (front row). (Not pictured: Kimberly Emery)