When I tell people what I do for a living, often I get a puzzled look when I say, “I advocate for children’s health.” I explain that I work for Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, and it’s my job to make sure our elected officials understand how the work they do impacts the lives of children.

For example, a recent proposed change in President Obama’s budget calls for the elimination of federal funding for Children’s

Thirty-six lab coats hang outside Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin to raise awareness of the impact of proposed funding cuts to resident training programs on health care for children.

Graduate Medical Education. This cut is alarming because it has a real impact on Wisconsin and the health of our children. The funding provides children’s hospitals with much-needed dollars for physician education. In Wisconsin, 60 percent of residents from Children’s Hospital’s training programs choose to stay here when they complete their residency training. Some may practice in primary care by joining a pediatric practice and others choose to train further. All of them help our children.

So, you may ask, how does the elimination of federal funding for this program impact our children? It means we’ll have fewer doctors who specialize in the care of children to take care of our kids.

Please consider contacting your federal elected officials. It truly can have a great deal of impact and only takes a few minutes. In fact, it takes less than 10 individual letters to get an elected official’s attention on a particular issue. To learn more about the funding cuts, visit nachri.net.

Are you interested in learning more about Children’s Hospital advocacy efforts and the work we are doing with elected officials? Sign up to receive updates from Children’s Advocacy Network.

~ Michelle Mettner, vice president, Government Relations, Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin

Are you looking for that extra special present to give someone?
 Well how about giving up a little bit of yourself, or more specifically one of your organs, your blood or marrow?

Becoming an organ, blood or marrow donor holds the promise of life for thousands of patients with life-threatening conditions and diseases. Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin has seen the impact that organ donation can have for children and families awaiting a transplant. We perform heart, liver and kidney transplants. Many of our children wait months or years for an organ transplant.

The Organ Procurement and Transplant Network shows nearly 2,000 children in the U.S. are waiting for an organ transplant. Approximately 7 percent of children died in 2010 while waiting on the list for an organ transplant. Organs from adult donors often are too large to place into young children. Parents, relatives or friends sometimes can donate a kidney or part of a liver to a child. However, most children are placed on the waiting list for an organ from someone who has died.

The Blood and Marrow Transplant Program at Children’s Hospital is one of the largest in the U.S. using unrelated individuals or mismatched family members as donors. Blood and Marrow Transplants are used successfully to treat a number of cancers, blood diseases and immune disorders that were once considered incurable. Many children who have surgery also rely on life-saving blood donations.

Join the fight to save more lives through organ donation and transplantation. Sign up at YesIWillWisconsin.com. For more information on blood or marrow donation, visit the BloodCenter of Wisconsin.

~ Cinda Werner, MS, RN, director, Trauma and Transplant Services, Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin

Asthma is one of the most common conditions impacting children today. In fact, asthma accounts for a loss of more than 10 million school days and costs parents more than $700 million due to missed work each year.

Many parents worry about their children with asthma participating in exercise. As a result, these parents limit their children’s physical activity. The truth is, asthma diagnoses often are misunderstood. Having asthma should not keep children from exercising.

To better control asthma triggers, follow these steps:

• Ask your child’s health care provider for an asthma action plan that will help you control your child’s asthma.

• Teach your child use the proper medication to manage the condition.

• Encourage and promote an active lifestyle.

• Make sure your child exercises in a controlled environment (clean space or outdoors) and always has his or her asthma medication readily available.

• Educate your child on what to do if an asthma attack occurs, so he or she knows how to react quickly.

• Talk to your child’s health care provider if current medication is not helping and your child is having symptoms on a regular basis.

For fun ways to increase your child’s physical activity with controlled exercise, visit the Centers for Disease Control. Information for parents can be found at the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute.

~ Michele Polfuss, APNP, Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin

Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin-Fox Valley is celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2011. As a pediatric heart specialist, I have seen real growth at the hospital during that time. I came here from Chicago. The adjustment from the bustling city to the quiet community of Neenah took me some getting used to, but I love it.

When I started at Children’s Hospital-Fox Valley in January 2002, the clinics had about 160 patients and all of the clinics’ charts could fit on one rolling cart. Now, the charts fill a large room.

I’ll never forget my early fascination with deer hunters. One of my patients wore a Holter heart monitor, a machine that continuously records the heart’s rhythms. The monitor is usually worn for 24-48 hours during normal activity. When it was scanned, there were more than 2 hours of heart rates of 180/minute and above. I called him, expecting to hear that he had experience palpitations or tachycardia. Instead, he had been hauling a deer he had shot on his back – all uphill, out of a ravine.

Another time I remember having to schedule one of my older patient’s tests around the opening of deer season.

Many of our patients drive hours to come to our hospital for appointments – from Marquette and Iron Mountain, Mich. For them, this hospital offers world-class care within reach of their home.

Everyone who supports the heart clinic at Children’s Hospital-Fox Valley deserves a big hand for improving the lives of the kids in our region and for making the last 10 years so exciting and rewarding.

~ Janette Strasburger, MD, pediatric cardiologist

At Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin’s monthly volunteer orientation, we ask everyone what brought them to us. Their answers will touch your heart, make you proud and strengthen your spirit of humanity. Who couldn’t use a little dose of that right now?

Here, our volunteers tell us why they have chosen to share their …Continue reading this post