Grand Rapids Pediatrician’s Foresight and Tenacity Preps Practice for Pandemic
Barbara Periard, MD, FAAP
Kathleen Howard, MD, FAAP, has been an unbelievable advocate for our pediatric community.
Dr. Howard is on the left, Dr. Periard on the right
As a pediatrician at Forest Hills Pediatric Associates in Grand Rapids, Mich., Dr. Howard was relentless in insisting that our practice and community needed to be prepared for the devastation that COVID-19 was going to inflict.
We are a practice that always follows evidence-based medicine. But Dr. Howard was watching what was going on in China and sounded the COVID-19 alarm early. She gets very passionate about things, and this was one thing she was not going to let go.
As early as late January, she began insisting that we increase our orders of PPE and antiviral cleaning supplies. She advised us to count how many swabs we had in our inventory and had us look into the possibility of forming relationships with new labs to increase our testing options.
Because of her tenacity, Forest Hills Peds was ultimately prepared for this pandemic.
Even though we're just a small private practice of 12 pediatricians, Forest Hills Peds was early in implementing processes such as screening patients and staff, taking their temperatures, wearing PPE and soliciting PPE from the community — even before the local hospitals did so.
Recently we've begun alternating physicians, so that we work one week on, one week off, preserving staff in case anyone gets sick or quarantined.
And Dr. Howard has been on top of the literature regarding COVID-19. When parents called with concerns about interactions between COVID-19 and ibuprofen that was circulating on the internet, Dr. Howard provided the phone nurses with the most recent scientific evidence so as not to perpetuate this inaccurate report.
Because of Dr. Howard's preparation we've been able to help other health-care workers as well as ourselves.
Kathleen Howard, MD, FAAP
In March, we sent an email blast to our more than 10,000 patients asking if anybody had masks they could donate. We were lucky to get significant donations, including from a local manufacturer.
We got enough that we were able to share with other friends and colleagues whose supplies had become scarce, including a hospital in Lansing, small private practices and a large anesthesiology group.
I'm forever indebted to Dr. Howard, and so are our partners. I'm in awe of her persistence and wherewithal. It's made our partnership stronger.
Thank you Dr. Howard for being such an advocate for the patients and the staff at Forest Hills Pediatrics!
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*The views expressed in this article are those of the author, and not necessarily those of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
About the Author
Barbara Periard, MD, FAAP
Barbara Periard, MD, FAAP, is a Board Certified pediatrician at Forest Hills Pediatric Associates in Grand Rapids, Mich.