“Maintaining lifelong learning and our certification, our competencies, our proficiencies, and our knowledge lets us take good care of our patients, and that’s what it’s all about.” – Christine Gleason, MD
Avery’s Diseases of the Newborn is the complete package for neonatologists and neonatal care providers. It’s very clinically based, but it also puts diseases and their treatments in context with discussions of the physiology of organ systems, anatomy, and embryology.
We’ve included new developments in fields like transport medicine and some of the systematic approaches to global neonatal and perinatal health. They might not be as miraculous and thought-provoking and so forth as some of the new advances in genomics and proteomics, but new ways to develop clinical care guidelines and to take care of babies globally are also part of our book now.
My mission in my professional life is to improve the outcomes of pregnancy and advance neonatal scholarship. Wide dissemination is really the only way that we can advance our field, get people curious about how to do things better, and train the next generation of neonatal care givers.
I think we’re recognizing in all fields of medicine that there is a need for lifelong learning and for a continual updating, as well as some process to be able to do that. I’ve become a real fan of textbooks as part of a continuum that keeps us on top of our field throughout the lifetime of our profession. Maintaining lifelong learning and our certification, our competencies, our proficiencies, and our knowledge lets us take good care of our patients, and that’s what it’s all about.
Bio
Christine A. Gleason, MD is a neonatologist widely known for her research on the effects of drugs on the developing brain and she holds the W. Alan Hodson Endowed Chair in Pediatrics at the University of Washington in Seattle, where she is a research affiliate at the Center on Human Development and Disability, Fellowship Training Program Director, and head of the Neonatology Division. Dr. Gleason’s primary clinical interest is in the care of the high-risk newborn, especially those born at 23–24 weeks’ gestation. Her research centers on the developing brain, with a specific focus on the effects of cocaine, alcohol, and narcotics. Dr. Gleason is an author of Avery’s Diseases of the Newborn, 9th Edition.
Dr. Gleason is currently working on a series of experiments that focus on the long-term effects of neonatal morphine on the brain. Critically ill infants in the NICU are often treated with narcotics such as morphine to relieve pain and stress. While short-term benefits of this therapy may be clear, potential long-term side effects are unknown. The goal of these studies is to provide a better rationale for neonatal therapeutics, weighing both the short-term and long-term risks.
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