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UMC to establish pediatric Pulmonary Center

Arizona Summer Wildcat

$1.25 M grant will go to train doctors in treating lung

A $1.25 million grant has been given to the University Medical Center to create a Pediatric Pulmonary Center, establishing the UA as one of eight schools in the country to offer such a program.

"The grant allows us to establish training physicians, nurses and other paramedical staff in issues related to pediatric chronic lung disease," said Dr. Mark Brown, a pediatric pulmonologist and principal investigator for the grant.

Besides standard techniques that will be taught as a result of the funds, more integrated approaches to medicine will be added.

The integrated approach will be separated into four areas of instruction and application. The first area was for providing advanced medical training to medical professionals interested in pediatric pulmonary conditions.

Resulting from a rise in the number of pediatric asthma cases, there is now a shortage of medical personnel trained to diagnose and treat children with chronic lung disease, said Dr. Wayne Morgan, professor of pediatrics and chief of the UA section of pediatric pulmonary.

There are now only 700 pediatric pulmonists in the nation.

"One in five children will develop asthma," Morgan said. "There is a real need to train more people."

The second area will be in developing new media to teach people about chronic lung disease. An idea that Brown is excited about is a CD-ROM that could be used to teach people in remote locations about diseases.

Other applications of the media would be to help teach parents about the conditions their children may be facing and how to recognize symptoms.

"Instead of explaining what wheezing sounds like, we could give them a CD-ROM that has sounds of wheezing on them," said Brown.

CD-ROMs and a Web site will also be created for use by medical personal who are too far from the UA to gain direct access to the center.

A third area of focus will be to train healthcare personnel how to provide family and culturally sensitive care.

"You can have all the drugs you want but you still have to get them to take the medicine," said Kathy Lortie, a social worker in the department.

Richard Clark can be reached at city@wildcat.arizona.edu.