Dr. Jessica Spira Kahn '82

Q: What challenges have you faced working during the COVID-19 pandemic?
A: The coronavirus pandemic has created tremendous challenges for all of us, but the strategies we’ve utilized to manage these challenges have been transformative and have created amazing learnings for our future work. 
One of my roles is Director of the Division of Adolescent and Transition Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, a research-intensive academic hospital that is affiliated with the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Both ramping down our clinical, research, and educational activities in advance of the COVID-19 surge - and ramping them back up post-surge - have been extraordinarily challenging. Our major challenges have been to ensure that all of our healthcare providers and staff are safe and healthy given that we are still providing in-person care to adolescents and young adults; the rapid shift to telemedicine which represents a dramatic change in the way we provide care; ensuring that our patients are receiving the care that they need despite social distancing measures and virtual visits; and trying to mitigate the increasing health disparities that our underserved patients and families are experiencing during this pandemic. The most effective strategy we’ve found to address the challenges is accelerated communication – e.g., initiating huddles twice a day with Divisional leaders and frequent cascading of information to Division members. This has allowed us to share constantly-changing information and guidelines, elicit challenges and stressors, surface creative ideas; create consensus; make decisions quickly, and support each other. Moving forward from this crisis, we will definitely be including some of these communication strategies in our daily work. In addition, even though the steep learning curve and the rapid timeline for launching telemedicine have been less than ideal, we’ve seen the potential for telemedicine to transform our clinical services positively, and to improve patient and family satisfaction and outcomes, and it will clearly become an important component of our clinical services in the future.
Another one of my roles is Associate Chair of Academic Affairs and Career Development at our hospital, and our team’s greatest challenge has been to support our ~1000 faculty members through this extremely difficult time. One strategy we developed was to send a 1 or 2 question survey to the faculty weekly, asking them to identify their major challenges, and to put into place just-in-time initiatives to support them. Based on the challenges they identified – telecommuting while caring for children, telehealth, optimizing clinical outcomes, keeping research staff engaged, concerns about research productivity, managing stress and anxiety, etc. – we launched a weekly publication containing resources to address those challenges, as well as some new programs. Those have included virtual sessions to share challenges and strategies, mindfulness meditation sessions, new policies such as the extension of the tenure clock, online communities to enable faculty to connect with each other, an opportunity to share “55-word stories” with the community about their experiences, and “hidden gems” awards to honor those who are often working under the radar to make meaningful contributions to the hospital and community. Moving forward from this pandemic, we will incorporate these pulse surveys to identify faculty challenges, just-in-time programs to support them, and initiatives to build community and connection. These will be especially important in helping to manage the traumatic effects of the pandemic for healthcare workers.
Finally, I started as President of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine in March of this year, just as the COVID-19 surge began. One of the first decisions I had to make with our executive committee was to cancel our annual meeting, which had been scheduled to take place in San Diego in March. Canceling the meeting was a painful and difficult decision, given that society is like a family, and the annual meeting is the highlight of the year for us. Our strategies to support members have been to make as much annual meeting content available online as possible, to encourage leaders of committees and special interest groups to hold online meetings, to continue to advocate for adolescent well-being and health equity during this time, and to create a series of virtual chats to help members manage the challenges they are experiencing: using telehealth and optimizing care for adolescent patients, teaching medical students and residents while socially distancing, and sharing strategies for ramping back up clinical care and research. Moving forward, we’ll be incorporating these virtual communication strategies to keep members engaged, connected, and supported.

Q: What successes have you celebrated during the COVID-19 pandemic?
A: As devastating as this pandemic has been for everyone, including those of us who are healthcare workers, researchers, and medical educators, there have been so many silver linings. In addition to the lessons learned that we’ll be incorporating into our work moving forward, I’m deeply grateful to be part of an organization that is on the front lines of caring for patients during a pandemic and whose leadership is working tirelessly to support healthcare workers and other employees and making sure we are safe, and our concerns are heard. It has been a privilege to witness how the leaders I work with the approach every challenge with thoughtfulness, care, and compassion. They have been role models for me in terms of their resilience, graciousness, kindness, and patience. Finally, I’ve been inspired by my colleagues’ courage, selflessness, flexibility, and deep concern and commitment to our patients, often prioritizing the needs of their patients over their own.

Q: How did your experience at Indian Springs shape your career choice?
A: My experience at Indian Springs was transformative, and what I learned from the faculty was foundational to who I am today and to my career. From Bob Cooper, a love of learning (or as he called it, “a yearning for learning”) and self-confidence – I remember one conversation during which he told me that I needed to believe that I was as “smart as the boys” in my class. From Mac Fleming, the joy and fulfillment of teaching – I am still trying to emulate his respectful, engaging teaching style. From Robert Stegner, the importance of integrity, precision, and clarity in writing. From Mac LaCasse, a fascination with science. And from Helen Payne, the importance of generosity and kindness in teaching, and a curiosity about and admiration for other cultures.