“You can listen to what I say, but you have to read. There’s no other way of becoming a good physician.” – Dr. Richard Polin
There are always new advancements in each field, but what has changed in neonatology is the molecular biochemical approach to understanding diseases. We understand disease pathophysiology at a molecular biochemical level much more than we understood in the past.
We’re always looking for new and interesting things and new ways to learn. The practice of neonatology is a lifelong learning process. If you stop your education when you finish your fellowship, eventually you’ll be out of date. I tell my fellows “you can listen to what I say, but you have to read” there’s no other way of becoming a good physician.
I chose the field because of a role model I had in pediatrics, Dr. John Driscoll, who was the medical director of neonatal intensive care unit at Columbia in New York City, and who was smart and cool and doing interesting things in the field. As a resident I found the patients in the NICU to be very challenging. It was a new field and it offered a lot of opportunity for innovation and research. I think those same opportunities are there for individuals entering this specialty today.
This is the second edition of Neonatology: Questions and Controversies, which is a six-volume set covering both controversial clinical areas in neonatal medicine and disease physiology. Therefore, it’s a combination of both management and physiology. The series is divided into body systems so it’s easy to read about the lung or gastrointestinal tract or renal system because they are in separate volumes, each of which contains extensive illustrations and tables in a user-friendly format. In addition, the contributors are renowned within neonatology and have expertise in the areas that the series addresses. It’s a testament to the editors who chose the individual authors for those chapters.
Richard Polin, MD, author of Fetal and Neonatal Physiology and the Neonatology: Questions and Controversies series, is a Professor of Pediatrics at Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons in the City of New York, and served as Director of the Division of Neonatology at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York-Presbyterian.
Dr. Polin is a prolific author, with more than 100 papers, 60 editorial reviews and chapters, 20 books, and 150 abstracts to his name.
He has been recognized with the National Neonatal Education Award by the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Perinatal Pediatrics. Dr. Polin’s scientific interests include developmental immunology, infectious diseases, hypoxic ischemic brain injury and respiratory management.
