Dr. Melody Petty selected to participate in national pediatrics teaching program

By Casandra Andrews
candrews@health.southalabama.edu

Dr. Melody Petty, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine and a pediatric hospitalist at USA Health Children’s & Women’s Hospital, has been selected for the Advanced Pediatrics Educator Excellence (APEX) Teaching Program.

A hospitalist is a physician who typically is not in private practice and instead focuses his or her attention on caring for patients within a hospital.

The 12-month pediatrics educator program, which accepts a limited number of applicants each year, is co-sponsored by the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Hospital Medicine (SOHM) and the Academic Pediatric Association (APA).

Interactive learning opportunities are offered to foster an ongoing exchange of ideas and best practices among a class of 24 participants and mentors. Petty’s mentor will be Dr. Franklin Trimm, associate dean for diversity and inclusion at the USA College of Medicine. The first session was held July 25-28, 2019, in Seattle.

“Those treated within academic medical centers such as USA Health Children’s & Women’s Hospital, benefit from collaboration among physicians who work together to find the best individualized care plans for patients,” said Dr. Franlkin Trimm. “Serving as a mentor to a talented young faculty member such as Dr. Petty is a great example of how such collaboration benefits our physicians and the community we serve.”

Goals of the national teaching program include learning educational theory and specific skills to apply at a participant’s home institution with direct observation of teaching by their mentors. Participants are expected to build a group of peer educators from institutions across the United States and together develop educational workshops for national presentation. Previous groups have had more than a dozen workshops accepted at national meetings, including the annual Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM) conference.

“I want to bring ideas back to our program and help our medical students, residents and faculty,” Petty said. “I love teaching, inspiring other learners and helping to build a person’s knowledge base.”

Petty is a member of the USA Program Evaluation and USA Pediatric Residency committees. She is also a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She completed a residency in pediatrics at USA Health, where she was recognized as the Residency Core Curriculum Scholar. Petty earned a medical degree from the University of Mississippi School of Medicine.

Petty said she knew when she entered medical school she wanted to work in primary care with a focus on pediatric medicine in underserved populations. “You can take care of newborns and teenagers in the same day,” she said. “The variety in the disease processes and figuring out what’s wrong with a patient is very rewarding.”