16-21-HCProfiles-212.qxp_TROUBLESHOOT 2/10/21 2:09 PM Page 16
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PREVENTION AND EDUCATION
EPIDEMIOLOGIST GUIDES CHILDREN S TEAM THROUGH PANDEMIC INFECTIOUS DISEASE EXPERT DR. ALICE SATO, MD, PHD, MARKED HER FIRST ANNIVERSARY AT CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL & MEDICAL CENTER ON JANUARY 1, 2021—AND WHAT A FIRST YEAR THAT WAS.
Learning as we go
Just three weeks into her new role as hospital epidemiologist, the physician in charge of infection prevention and education, Children’s set up its comprehensive coronavirus incident command.
“I’ve spent part of this year looking up at air vents in clinic and studying the layout in waiting rooms, trying to determine what makes for the safest door-to-door experience,” Sato said. “You have to give recommendations that are doable based on the best evidence we have today. The evidence I had in the spring is different from my options in October is different from where we are now.”
“I walked into the board room—I don’t really know anybody yet—and about 50 people are in there. Leadership says, ‘We need to be on top of this because we don’t know what’s going to happen,’ and everybody was involved: the facilities people, the logistics people, nursing supervisors, security. We talked about how do we plan, how do we keep track, how do we communicate. The amazing thing was, leadership had the foresight to do it then,” Sato said.
In her charge to prevent infection at Children’s, Sato considers everything from the number of air exchanges per hour in a patient’s room to the best way to ensure equipment is cleaned properly.
For those children in the community beyond prevention, Sato doubles as a pediatric infectious disease physician. She treats, among others, young patients with COVID19 and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C).
By early February, she was educating fellow doctors, “This is a new infection so we’re learning, as we go, the residents and medical students, presenting a lecture best way to manage it.” she’d titled Coronavirus: An Introduction, “because it was a new virus and also ‘an introduction’ because, ‘Hi, That has been a steady theme during her very fluid first I just started here. Let me tell you a little bit about me.’” year at Children’s: continual learning.
“YOU HAVE TO GIVE RECOMMENDATIONS THAT ARE DOABLE BASED ON THE BEST EVIDENCE WE HAVE TODAY.’”
That synopsis encompasses a layering of varied “I’m learning new things all the time, and what I told you experiences that ultimately prepared Sato to help guide yesterday, I might see something new today,” Sato said. Children’s through a global health crisis. She trained in “It’s a little overwhelming sometimes, but on the other pediatrics as an MD and earned her PhD in immunology. hand, it’s been amazing to see information growing and In 2011, she went into pediatric infectious disease, being shared.” working mostly in upstate New York and Denver (her home before coming to Omaha), but also practicing in areas as varied as Navajo Nation and New Zealand. “I have laboratory experience from my research PhD, and I have vaccine experience. But I also have experience as a general and hospital-based pediatrician,” Sato said. “Having this weird background has been very helpful because I speak a lot of different languages as far as science and medicine goes.”
~ DR. ALICE SATO, CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL & MEDICAL CENTER 16
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