I have recently completed my 24th year at Nemours Children’s Health, Delaware Valley. I recall, when I joined the staff of the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children, almost everyone was happy to have recently shed the term “institute” from the title. As the organization has grown, I have seen first-hand how it has necessarily changed, in ways sometimes both welcome and painful. I believe that institutional change required honoring original motives and commitments, while responding correctly to the evolving challenges of the world in which we live.

My career has been a voyage of discovery, beginning with an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Haverford College, then to Temple University School of medicine, pediatrics residency at St. Christopher’s in Philadelphia, child neurology residency and epilepsy/clinical neurophysiology fellowships at The Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, eventuating in a return to the Delaware Valley, with my first and only job post-training, at Nemours. I have been section chief of pediatric neurology in two terms, spanning 15 years, from 2007 until 2016, and July 2018 to July 2021. Currently, I am the program director of the child neurology residency program, and the site director of the pediatric epilepsy fellowship, of the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. While child neurology is my chosen career, I am a pediatrician as well, and I remain board-certified in pediatrics, as well as neurology with special qualifications in child neurology, clinical neurophysiology, and epilepsy.

I have always been a clinician first, with the care of children at the center of my career mission. Finding time for other things has been a challenge, but also a necessity. Under my guidance Nemours Delaware Valley was designated a center of excellence by the National Association of Epilepsy Centers, the Sturge-Weber Foundation, the Tuberous Sclerosis Foundation, and the Neurofibromatosis Foundation.  I have served on many committees and working groups, both internal and extra-mural, during my career. Among these, the Nemours Pride Associate Resource group, the professional advisory board of the Epilepsy Foundation of Delaware, the sudden death in the Young panel of the Delaware Child Death Review Commission, the Nemours medical cannabis advisory group to the State of Delaware, the Sturge-Weber Foundation International Research Network (SWIFRN), the Nemours Pediatric Stroke Protocol Committee, the Nemours Strategic Alignment and Optimization Council, and the Committee on Committee Operation and Efficacy, have been among the most interesting and informative experiences. Antedating, but not conflicting with, my career at Nemours, in 1998 I helped found Exceptional Care for Children Inc. (ECC) for chronic residential care in Newark, Delaware. I am president and medical director of ECC. Most recently I have agreed to co-chair the Drug Ingestion Workgroup of the Child Protection Accountability Commission of Delaware, and to be co-facilitator for the Nemours Pride ARG.

I have sought to preserve, revive, and engage both old and new interests, which have included classical piano, crew, bicycling, horticulture, supporting the arts, and being a fully committed spouse. Obviously, living these experiences fully is very difficult to balance with career. Nonetheless it is of utmost importance to realize that we all have but one life, and it needs to be lived well. In aspiring to membership of the Medical Executive Committee, I will promise to apply my perspectives with consistency and sincerity in any decision process.