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Dear Yale Pediatrics Family,
It's hard to believe we're already halfway through November! I hope you all have had a great start to fall and a safe, fun Halloween. In the news section below, you'll see how a few of our smallest NICU patients dressed up in some incredibly cute costumes created and donated by Kim Kohrs.
Keep reading for other inspiring updates, great events, and volunteer opportunities supporting our patient families across Connecticut. Thanks for all you do!
Warmly,
Cliff
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Vaccine Clinic Calendar 2025: Flu and COVID vaccine clinics began in late September and are scheduled through Thanksgiving, November 27. All employees are eligible to receive flu/COVID vaccines at our clinics. Employees and their dependents covered by Aetna will receive additional information about community vaccination options. Appointments are not needed for clinics listed on the calendar. Stay tuned for more information through additional updates, the Yale Flu and COVID Vaccine Program website, and social media.
Also, a reminder from Margaret McGovern, MD, PhD that flu vaccination is mandatory for all Yale School of Medicine faculty and staff in patient-facing and human research subject-facing positions, including per diem staff.
Additionally, on Monday, Dec. 1, 2025, enterprise-wide staff masking requirements will go into effect which will require all physicians, employees, and volunteers to mask for patient interactions. Patients and visitors are strongly encouraged, but not required, to mask except in specific situations. Read more about the enterprise-wide masking requirement on the website.
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Martina Brueckner, MD; Lieping Chen, MD, PhD; and Tamas Horvath, DVM, PhD, have been elected to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) for 2025. Election to NAM recognizes individuals for outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service, and it is one of the highest honors within health and medicine. Please join us for a reception to congratulate them on this remarkable accomplishment on Monday, Nov. 24, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in the historical library. Please RSVP for the NAM event via the Qualtrics form.
Dr. Brueckner, professor of pediatrics (cardiology) and of genetics, was nominated for her groundbreaking research on the cellular and molecular mechanisms that drive left-right asymmetry in vertebrates—an essential process behind the asymmetric structure and positioning of our internal organs. She played a leading role in the consortium that identified a genetic cause for roughly 40% of congenital heart disease cases. At Yale New Haven Children's Hospital, she co-founded one of the first pediatric cardiac genetics clinics, offering comprehensive diagnostic evaluations and long-term care for children with genetic cardiovascular conditions. Dr. Brueckner has been a faculty member at Yale School of Medicine (YSM) since completing her fellowship here in 1990. In recognition of her contributions, she was inducted into the Association of American Physicians in 2023.
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Assistant Professor in Pediatrics
Elianny Lantigua Guichardo, MD, MHA, is a primary care pediatrician and faculty member in the Department of Pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine, based at the Bridgeport Primary Care Center. She earned her medical degree from Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) in the Dominican Republic, followed by a master’s degree in healthcare management in Madrid, Spain. She then completed her pediatric residency at Yale New Haven Children's Hospital. Dr. Lantigua Guichardo is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Health Come True Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to leading global health initiatives in the Dominican Republic and providing free pediatric care in rural communities. Her professional interests include preventive medicine, health education, and improving healthcare access for marginalized populations.
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As we approach the 2025 holiday recess, the schedule here outlines key dates outlines key dates in consideration of standard posting timelines for creating and posting job requisitions, processing temporary employment requests, and extending offers.
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PPN leaders from YSM are making an impact in region 1 by engaging with Regional Disaster Health Response System (RDHRS) and Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) to strengthen pediatric disaster preparedness and response across the region. Team members will also participate in pediatric-focused tabletop exercises at both Hasbro Children’s Hospital and Vassar Brothers Medical Center, reinforcing real-world readiness for pediatric emergencies.
Continuing Education Opportunity
Now Available: CE for Pediatric Disaster Science Training Program
Enhance your expertise with the Disaster Science Scholars Program. Select recorded sessions are now available on demand, and most include continuing education credits. This is a flexible way to deepen your knowledge of pediatric disaster science.
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The 2025 submission deadline for the Child Care Subsidy Program application reimbursement requests is Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. The submission deadline will be here in no time, so do not delay. It is not too early to submit the childcare subsidy application and receipts for benefit-eligible faculty, managerial and professional staff, postdoctoral associates, and postdoctoral fellows for 2025. Parents and guardians can submit more than once during the calendar year.
As a reminder, 2025 reimbursement applications and receipts submitted after this year's deadline are not eligible for payment. If you will incur charges for childcare between Dec. 5, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2025, and plan to submit a request for subsidy reimbursement, you must submit payment receipts by Friday, Dec. 5, 2025.
Visit the Child Care Subsidy Program page for additional information, including eligibility requirements, frequently asked questions, and to apply for reimbursement.
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In 2022, the respiratory viral season saw a surge in children hospitalized with RSV, flu, and SARS-CoV-2. A new Yale study investigates what that meant for bed shortages in hospitals across the country.
Source: Yale NewsConnecticut’s top public health official rolled up her sleeve to expose her left shoulder and got a shot from a Yale New Haven Health nurse — as part of an emergency-room-adjacent presser about the importance of getting inoculated against influenza, RSV, and Covid.
Source: New Haven IndependentIn 2022, 1,700 children were hospitalized with RSV, but the introduction of the antibody in 2023-24 halved that number.
Source: CT News JunkieA new study finds that ambient AI scribes that document patient visits reduce the odds of physician burnout by 74% while returning physicians' focus to their patients.
Connecticut health experts and officials recommend COVID and flu vaccines ahead of respiratory illness season.
Source: WTNHMartina Brueckner, MD, Lieping Chen, MD, PhD, and Tamas Horvath, DVM, PhD, have been elected to the National Academy of Medicine.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers has developed a novel research model to enhance investigation conducted at the intersection of religion and medicine.
Four new research projects have been funded through a new social media pilot research award made possible through a generous donation to Yale Child Study Center. Several pilot studies have been launched to investigate the impacts of social media on child and adolescent mental health and development.
Through a unique collaboration between Yale Child Study Center (YCSC) and the Center for Children’s Advocacy, a medical-legal partnership at Yale offers legal support for children living in the New Haven area who receive services at YCSC and are facing legal barriers that impede their health and well-being.
The YSM Educational Technology and Innovation team and the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library collaborated to create Curriculum Search, an AI tool that uses a multimodal large language model (LLM) and a retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) system to search thousands of files and find information about the MD curriculum.
We are pleased to announce that David Hersh, MD, PhD, has been named Director of the Yale Pediatric Ethics Program (YPEP) at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital effective October 1, 2025.
Dr. Jennifer Sherr, a pediatric endocrinologist who lives with T1D, joined the Diabetes Connections podcast to talk about the basics of ketones and much more!
Source: Diabetes Connections with Stacey SimmsCatch the latest Mucosal Immunology podcast, "At the placenta," featuring Dr. Liza Konnikova, from Yale University - brought to you by SMI and the Mucosal Immunology Journal.
Source: Mucosal Immunology PodcastHalloween is three days away, and many children and their families are expected to go out trick-or-treating this year. During this time of fun and festivities, safety officials recommend that parents remain vigilant when checking their children’s candy bags.
Source: WTNHWe are pleased to announce that Kathryn Fletcher, MD, FAAP, has been named medical director of the Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital’s York Street Campus Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), effective immediately, and Brooke Redmond, MD, FAAP, has been named the Yale New Haven Health System (YNHHS) NICU Network System clinical operations director, effective December 1, 2025.
Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital is celebrating Halloween in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Source: WFSBDr. Sonia Caprio, MD, from Yale University School of Medicine, discussed the close link between the prevalence of child obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2D); and lessons learned, in particular, from the Restoring Insulin Secretion (RISE) consortium, the SEARCH study, and the TODAY study.
Source: HCPLiveIn a new research letter, “Prevalence of Excess Adiposity by Body Mass Index Category Among US Children and Adolescents”, published in JAMA Pediatrics, a team of Yale experts examined the clinical utility of taking additional measurements in children with high body mass index (BMI) to diagnose pediatric obesity.
How infectious disease experts are thinking about COVID testing in 2025.
Source: TODAYPaw Prints works to connect with and strengthen our community through the power of storytelling. The blog hopes to highlight blog posts from a diverse array of people, perspectives, and experiences. Long or short form writing, drawings, poems, photos, and different media are welcome. To submit, please email molly.markowitz@yale.edu
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Help us feed families in need at the PCC.
Drop off non-perishable goods at the box in the Chair's Office on weekdays through Nov. 21 or have items delivered directly to the PCC via their Amazon Wishlist through Nov. 30.
Most needed items include:
If you or someone you know in Connecticut needs food, housing, or utility assistance, please call 2-1-1 or visit https://www.211ct.org/, or connect with your local food pantry through CT Foodshare.
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Representatives from Ronald McDonald House of Connecticut visited our faculty meeting last month to give us updates on their programs and upcoming expansion. Please see this flyer with ways to get involved!
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More about Dimensions.ai and automatically and manually adding publications to your profile
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Mark your calendars: Annual Benefits Enrollment is from November 17 to December 5.
Please see the clarification on the recent Transportation Expense Procedure and Guidelines. Please reach out to Mary Kate DeMarco or your contact in the business office if you have any questions.
With the academic year fully underway, some reminders about international travel safety and the many resources available to Yale faculty, students, and staff.
Information Technology at Yale is committed to supporting effective teamwork and enhancing efficient collaboration across our community. It is with this in mind that I write to remind you that ITS will retire the Box at Yale service on March 31, 2026. Free, Yale-supported Microsoft 365 tools — OneDrive, Teams, and SharePoint — remain available for file storage and collaboration. Thank you to the 15% of the community who have already migrated Box data since we first initiated the Collaboration Counts project in 2024. We are ahead of our target due to the proactive efforts of leadership across the university partnering to adapt to this change early. For more, see this October 2025 email from Yale Health Sciences IT with additional information.
If OneDrive and/or SharePoint are new to you or you need to brush up, there are 2 available trainings via LinkedIn Learning.
Several Red Cross blood drives will be hosted on Yale’s campus in the coming months. Yale staff interested in registering should visit this new webpage displaying blood drives at Yale.
While walk-ins are welcome, prospective donors are encouraged to schedule ahead of time to save up to 15 minutes by using Rapid Pass. Call 1-800-RED-CROSS (1-800-733-2767) or visit the website.
Every two seconds, someone in the U.S. needs blood. It is essential for surgeries, cancer treatment, chronic illnesses, and traumatic injuries. The need for blood is constant, and only volunteer donors can fulfill that need for patients in our community.
This summer, ITS will begin to update Yale IDs and card readers. This is part of Yale Operations’ ongoing commitment to maintain and enhance Yale's infrastructure. This effort minimizes disruptions by considering the need to use Yale IDs across multiple areas of campus, including parking, facilities, the university library, student services, printing services, athletics, and hospitality.
The update introduces newer technology necessary to better protect our campus community through improved security and system reliability. ITS will communicate detailed information regarding ID distribution, specific implementation timelines, and additional phases of the initiative in the near future. Community members will receive direct instructions about when and where to obtain their new Yale IDs.
For questions or concerns, please contact the project team at ReplacementIDProject@yale.edu. Yale ITS will make more information available on this website within the coming weeks.
Many parents and caregivers of the chronically sick children for whom we provide care have concerns about immigration enforcement and the impact it may have upon the health and wellbeing of their children. As pediatric providers, we hope to ensure that all sick children receive the uninterrupted care that they need. With that in mind, we want to share the following resources:
We hope these resources will be useful in the care of the sick children under the medical supervision of the Yale Pediatrics community.
Yale Advantages is your exclusive employee discount program offering savings on airfare, lodging, attractions, and more! Discover offers and discounts on travel, Broadway theater tickets, sports and outdoors, cellphones, computers, buying a car, and so much more. If you are about to make a purchase–large or small–visit Yale Advantages for potential savings.
Longtime members of the Yale community might already be familiar with the university’s pre-tax commuter benefits, the savings built in to a Yale ID, and complimentary tickets for Bulldog athletics.
But what about discounts and gratis activities that are a bit more… niche? Yale also provides support like free fingerprinting, no-cost notary services, and prompt passport photos. Read on for an insider’s guide to some of the university’s less obvious perks.
Through Yale's Signature Benefits program, employees can receive services from Optum, a 24/7 emotional support service that provides counseling resources, emotional wellbeing assistance, nutritional advice, work-life services that help employees balance responsibilities at work and at home, and financial and legal services. To learn more, please visit Yale's Optum website.
Are you interested in sharing your expertise with community pediatricians, advanced practice providers, and school-based nurses? It’s a great way to promote your clinic/program and increase your reach. If so, fill out this short Qualtrics survey to let us know what you want to talk about.
The Pediatric Medical Education Research Collaborative (P-MERC) can be found here. P-MERC provides resources and support to members of the Department of Pediatrics who are interested in engaging in educational research and scholars. If you have suggestions for the site, please reach out to Melissa Langhan, MD, MHS, at Melissa.Langhan@yale.edu.
Print or save this flyer if you need assistance on campus during an emergency, to get support or make a report about misconduct, reach mental health counseling, or report other concerns.