"I want to tell the people that I want to tell. And I want it to be easy for me to do that. And I want it also to be easy for me to be like, Hey, I don't want to tell that person and that that be okay. And just like have it be a normal thing like anything else you would tell somebody about yourself."

That's Egan, a former patient of the Stanford Gender Clinic who underwent hormone replacement therapy. He explains the importance of identity and how and when to share that with peers. Our identities are a huge part of who we are, and that includes our gender identity. Transgender youth make up just 3% of the population but they're also at greatest risk of suicide compared to their non transgender peers because of rejection, bullying and other victimization.

In honor of Pride Month, join us as we celebrate the Stanford Gender Clinic, a unique program that is rising to the new standard of promoting equitable, inclusive care for LGBTQ+ people and their families.

What does it mean to keep the mother’s health front and center? For Dr. Yasser El-Sayed, Obstetrician in Chief at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford, it’s very important to keep mom’s health a priority when you are dealing with complicated births, such as those requiring fetal surgeries. Dr. El-Sayed leads the maternal and fetal medicine programs at Packard Children's, offering specialized comprehensive care to expectant moms with high risk pregnancies.

In this conversation, Dr. El-Sayed discusses how the maternal fetal medicine programs address complicated births and philanthropy’s role in helping provide top-notch patient care at Stanford Children’s Hospital. You’ll also hear from Karen and Angel, who spoke about their daughter, Victoria’s, experience with a groundbreaking fetal surgery to treat her spina bifida.

0:01 - Introduction to Karen and Victoria’s story

1:50 - Why Dr. El-Sayed chose to work with mothers and babies

5:40 - Karen and Victoria’s story, continued

7:17 - The fetal program at Stanford Children’s Hospital and types of complications treated

13:02 - How Stanford Children’s Hospital helped a pregnant woman give birth with COVID

15:59 - How a recent gift from David and Lucile Packard Foundation will impact care

22:48 - Developments in research around the placenta

26:40 - Karen and Victoria’s story, continued

27:33 - Philanthropy’s role 

31:52 - Midnight Rounds, the hospitals unofficial band

34:37 - How Dr. Yasser El-Sayed relates to nature

About the Podcast

Care + Cures: Advancing children's health in Silicon Valley (a Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health podcast) unites families, donors, doctors and more to advance transformative healthcare for children. Echoing the innovative spirit of Lucile “Lu” Packard, the children’s hospital’s visionary founder, Care + Cures delivers stories of patient triumphs and challenges, medicine’s successes and failures, and the power of community support—all coming together to change the world, one child at a time.

About the Host

Sarah Davis is a podcast producer and learning experience designer with interests in storytelling, healthcare, the science of learning, and design thinking. She splits her time between the East Bay and Des Moines, Iowa, where she enjoys finding new food adventures, biking the trail networks, and admiring sunsets after hikes in the hills. You can reach her at connectedpodcaster.com.

Resources

Dr. Yasser El-Sayed: https://profiles.stanford.edu/yasser-el-sayed

Dr. Yasser El-Sayed’s website: https://www.el-sayedliterature.com/ 

Meet Victoria: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peDoyTjnV88 

Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford Receives $100 Million Gift to Reimagine a Leading-Edge Facility for the Care of Moms and Babies: https://supportlpch.org/blog/lucile-packard-children%E2%80%99s-hospital-stanford-receives-100-million-gift-reimagine-leading-edge

Dr. Yair Blumenfeld: https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/doctor/yair-j-blumenfeld

Fetal Spina Bifida: ​​

“We know it's a question of access to health care, access to clean water, or access to healthy food. We know what the cause is, but we have differences because we haven't fixed those causes. So, when we talk about health inequities, we talk about differences that are, at their root, really unjust – and quite fixable – it's just a question of political will.”

What is health equity and how does it impact youth? For youth today, access to healthcare means much more than simply providing services – to effect change, you must apply a holistic approach, taking into account variables like a child’s family background, their parents’ education, and access to technology. Researcher Dr. Chamberlain, Professor of Pediatrics, Associate Chair of Policy and Community, has been studying how culture and community, as well as how different interventions can level the playing field for children in terms of health equity.

In this conversation, Dr. Chamberlain discusses issues around health equity, including how COVID-19 affected health equity, factors that roll into disparities and some strategies that work to reduce those disparities.

1:53 - What is health equity?

3:11 - How COVID-19 shed a light on the inequality kids and teens were facing

4:53 - Telehealth’s advantages and possible disadvantages with respect to health equity

7:43 - How addressing racism, social injustice, and poverty as core determinants of health can impact a child for life

9:54 - An example of how two different kids with a similar diagnosis face different outcomes based on their backgrounds

11:39 - Implications when not everyone can take advantage of innovations

14:30 - How health inequities play out in mental health

17:35 - ​​How a mother’s education level affects her children’s health outcomes

20:34 - Strategies to reduce disparities

28:14 - Park Prescriptions program

About the Podcast

Care + Cures: Advancing children's health in Silicon Valley (a Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health podcast) unites families, donors, doctors and more to advance transformative healthcare for children. Echoing the innovative spirit of Lucile “Lu” Packard, the children’s hospital’s visionary founder, Care + Cures delivers stories of patient triumphs and challenges, medicine’s successes and failures, and the power of community support—all coming together to change the world, one child at a time.

Sarah Davis is a podcast producer and learning experience designer with interests in storytelling, healthcare, the science of learning, and design thinking. She splits her time between the East Bay and Des Moines, Iowa, where she enjoys finding new food adventures, biking the trail networks, and admiring sunsets after hikes in the hills. You can reach her at davispodcastproductions.com.

• Health Equity Considerations and Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups (CDC) https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/health-equity/race-ethnicity.html
• Confronting Racism Head On https://supportlpch.org/blog/confronting-racism-head 
• Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2775687 
• Little Libraries Program