According to the CDC, approximately 0.6% of children aged 0-17 have active epilepsy, so in a school of 1,000 students, this means 6 of them could have epilepsy. Adolescence is a time when patients have more autonomy in caring for their chronic disease and have changes in lifestyle factors, which could be risk factors for increased seizures. In this episode, Lawrence Fried, MD, a pediatric neurologist, and Zia Gajary, MD, a primary care pediatrician, help us understand how to counsel teen patients and their caregivers about managing epilepsy during adolescence, including topics such as driving, sports, contraception, drugs, college, and more! Their HRSA grant has enhanced teen epilepsy education at CHOP and they share their tips in this podcast episode.

The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) advocacy curriculum has a rich history of teaching pediatric residents how to incorporate being an advocate into their career as a pediatrician. Noreena Lewis, JD, the Co-Director of the Community Pediatrics and Advocacy Program (CPAP), explains the various ways pediatricians can engage in advocacy, some of the biggest hurdles for resident advocates, strategies for engaging with communities and creating sustainable projects as a trainee, and examples of CHOP resident advocacy projects. Noreena recommends the CHOP Office of Community Impact as a great starting point for anyone interested in starting their advocacy journey! You can also read her article in Pediatrics (Feb 2024) entitled "A Qualitative Study of Resident Advocacy Work." This episode is such an inspiring conversation about an important topic for all pediatricians and medical educators!

New research has led to the approval of sickle cell gene therapy and CHOP has played a big role in both the research and implementation of this innovative treatment. In this episode, Dr. Abraham Haimed, an attending in the Division of Hematology at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, explains how a patient's own hematopoietic stem cells can be edited to block the expression or function of a certain gene and reactivate normal fetal hemoglobin to cure sickle cell disease. While this treatment happens outside the primary care world, it is important for general pediatricians to understand how this treatment works and what to look out for after a patient receives gene therapy.