For their Autumn Conference, held at No. 6 Kildare Street on 9 October, RCPI Faculty of Paediatrics welcomed perspectives from disability advocates on how the world could be transformed for children with disabilities.
Sinéad Burke, founder and CEO of Tilting the Lens, said that a “new co-design process” is needed which integrates the experience of disabled patients in their treatment, and also allows disabled doctors to thrive. Adam Harris, founder of the autism charity AsIAm, spoke of the barriers autistic people face in an inaccessible world, and encouraged utilising the experience of autistic doctors to make services more accessible.
The annual Ralph Conahan lecture – delivered in honour of the path-finding paediatrician – was delivered by Dr Julie Hauer, medical director of Seven Hills Paediatric Centre in Massachusetts – an 83-bed skilled nursing community uniquely designed for children and young adults. Dr Hauer spoke of her experience making decisions with parents of children with severe neurological impairment, and encouraging a process tailored around parents’ processing of anticipated risk, and allowing that to inform decisions.
The conference featured routine updates from leads of the HSE and RCPI’s national clinical programmes for paediatrics and neonatology. Dr Hilary Stokes (paediatrician, Mayo University Hospital) and Dr Ann Hickey (neonatologist, Children’s Health Ireland) spoke of the HSE’s new revised national model of care for paediatric healthcare services.
A session resonating with themes of the Presidency Council of the European Union touched on concerns such as vaping in young people and online safety for children. Dr Des Cox (paediatric respiratory medicine, Children’s Health Ireland at Crumlin) referenced growing research evidencing harmful effects of vaping, in the context of the Public Health (Tobacco Products and Nicotine Inhaling Products) Bill currently before Seanad Éireann.
Alex Cooney, CEO of the online safety charity CyberSafeKids, spoke of the need for specific child online safety regulation, and for digital literacy education for children, parents and caregivers. Dr Cillian Lineen (paediatrician, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital Drogheda) gave a presentation on insulin pumps and their current “hybrid closed-loop” system, and the development of a new “full closed-loop” system where children wouldn’t need to manually enter their carbohydrate count.
A final panel invited subspecialists to share updates on what’s new in their subspecialty: Dr Orla Franklin, a paediatric cardiologist at Children’s Health Ireland, shared how advances in cardiac imaging are drawing on technology originally developed for the gaming industry; Prof Denise Mc Donald spoke of how the area of child development and neurodisability had recently become recognised within Children’s Health Ireland as its own specialist department; Prof Juan Trujillo Wurttele, a paediatric allergist, spoke of developing an allergy oral-immunotherapy programme at Cork University Hospital; Prof Catherine Quinlan shared recent research in paediatric nephrology concerning thyroid testing, anti-nephrin antibodies, genomics, vesicoureteral reflux, urinary tract infections, and chronic kidney disease; and Dr Matt Mc Govern, a neonatologist at The Coombe Hospital, spoke of the advantages of video laryngoscopy and laryngeal mask airway devices in neonatal intubation, and of data-gathering that's begun in anticipation of introduced neonatal stabilisation for babies born at 22 weeks.
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