Neonatal / NICU Care Continuing Education Course Bundle #1 (10.5 Hours)

Dr Embleton has worked in neonatal medicine for the past 25 years, completing clinical training and a research doctorate in neonatal nutrition in the UK, and a neonatal fellowship in Vancouver, Canada. He has worked as a Consultant Neonatal Pediatrician in Newcastle, UK since 2002, one of the largest UK neonatal units, caring for sick preterm and term born neonates. He leads a broad portfolio of research focused on nutrition and gut health in preterm infants. Areas of work include determining patterns of early gut microbial colonization, and how these may predict the development of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and sepsis. He is a project team member of large neonatal feeding trials recruiting >5000 infants in the UK, as well as coordinating mechanistic studies using microbiomic and metabolomic analyses. He chairs the multi-disciplinary UK Neonatal Nutrition Network (N3) and is a member of the Committee of Nutrition for ESPGHAN.

After 37 years as an attending neonatologist and 18 years as medical director of lactation services, Nancy retired from clinical practice 2019. She graduated from medical school and did her training in pediatrics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She did her fellowships in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine and ECMO at UCSD Medical Center in San Diego. She has been a board-certified lactation consultant since 1988. Nancy co-founded the San Diego County Breastfeeding Coalition in 1994. She was the Breastfeeding Coordinator for AAP CA Chapter 3 from 1992 until 2020, Board Member of HMBANA 2015-2019 and established the first Donor Milk Depot in San Diego over 25 years ago. Nancy is a past president of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine. She wrote, and continues to update, the very first ABM Protocol on Hypoglycemia and Breastfeeding. In 2014 Nancy was awarded the Golden Wave Award by the California Breastfeeding Coalition for her efforts to reduce obstacles to breastfeeding in California, and the WIC Breastfeeding Champion Award in 2017. She received AAP Special Achievement Awards in 1997 and 2021 for her breastfeeding education and promotion efforts.

On a personal note, she is the mother of a (formerly breastfed) archaeology student and lives in San Diego, CA, with her significant other, their dog, Darwin, and a beautiful view of the ocean.

Dr. Sue Hall has been a neonatologist for 25 years, and before that she worked as a master’s level social worker. She has a BA from Stanford University, an MSW from Boston University, and an MD from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She completed training in Pediatrics and Neonatology at The Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, MO, then joined the faculty at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine where she affiliated for 19 years. Now in private practice at a community hospital NICU in Oxnard, California, Dr. Hall was the Co-Chair of the National Perinatal Association’s Workgroup on “Interdisciplinary Recommendations for Psychosocial Support of NICU Parents,” which resulted in publication of a supplement issue of Journal of Perinatology in December, 2015. She is also the author of a book about life in the NICU, titled For the Love of Babies, published in June, 2011.

Regina Grazel is a certified perinatal advanced practice nurse with more than 30 years of neonatal nursing experience. She holds several clinical designations, including ANCC board-certified high-risk perinatal nurse, neonatal resuscitation program regional trainer, NANN neonatal developmental care specialist, and certified breastfeeding counselor. Jean is currently serving on the National Association of Neonatal Nurses (NANN) Board of Directors as the Immediate Past President having completed her term as President in October 2016. Jean is also a former president of the Delaware Valley chapter of NANN. After many years as a Perinatal Clinical Nurse Specialist in the acute care setting, she has moved into the public health arena. Jean is employed by the New Jersey Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics as the Program Director for the New Jersey Department of Health Critical Congenital Heart Defects Screening Program and Zika Infant Surveillance.

Dr Nathalie Charpak is currently the scientific coordinator and an attending paediatrician at the Kangaroo Mother Care program of the San Ignacio University Hospital. In addition, she is a founding member, senior researcher and director of the “Fundacion Canguro” in Bogotá, Colombia since 1994. Dr Charpak received her M.D. from the “Paris Sud” University and her paediatrician diploma from “Rene Descartes” University in Paris, France. She migrated in 1986 to Colombia where she validated her title as Paediatrician and begin in 1989 to work on the evaluation of the Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) program. She is now a Colombian citizen. With several colleagues she founded in 1994 the “Fundacion Canguro” in Bogotá, an NGO devoted to research, teaching, training and direct medical care related to KMC method for premature infants that besides conducting large clinical trials on KMC has been actively disseminating the method mainly in low and middle income countries in Latin America, South East Asia, India, Africa and Eastern Europe. In 1996 in Trieste Italy she was among the group of international researchers, physicians and nurses who founded the International Kangaroo Network -INK- an international alliance devoted to collaborating, enhancing and disseminating the KMC method. Dr Charpak continues to work as an attending paediatrician in the KMC program and his current research interest is in integrative methods for summarizing and putting into action what is known about KMC in the form of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. She is also recently involved as coordinator in conducting evaluations of long term (adolescents and young adults) neurodevelopment outcomes in preterm infants exposed or not exposed to KMC during the neonatal period.

After raising three children as a stay-at-home mother, Dr. Phillips received a Masters degree in Developmental Psychology, became NIDCAP certified as an Infant Developmental Specialist, and then attended medical school at University of California, Davis, graduating in 2004. She completed her pediatric residency and neonatology fellowship at Loma Linda University Children's Hospital in Loma Linda, CA and is currently an attending neonatologist in the NICU at the same hospital as well as Co-Medical Director of Newborn Nursery at Loma Linda University Medical Center-Murrieta. Dr. Phillips is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant and is a Fellow of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine. She is the immediate past president of the National Perinatal Association. Her primary areas of interest are mother-infant attachment, breastfeeding education and support, and Family-Centered Neuroprotective Care of premature infants in the NICU.

Karel Allegaert received his MD and PhD at the KU Leuven, Belgium where he trained as a pediatrician-neonatologist, with an additional expertise in clinical pharmacology. He is professor at the KU Leuven (department of development and regeneration) and is clinical consultant at the pediatric intensive care unit of the Sophia's Children's Hospital, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. His research is focused on developmental perinatal pharmacology and neonatal and pediatric pain, has been supported by European funding (Albino study), and national grants (FWO, IWT-SBO) and has resulted in about 300 PubMed citations, H index 33. He is member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium, president of European Society of Developmental Pharmacology and section head clinical pharmacology of the European Society of Pediatric Research.

Keira Sorrells is the mother of triplets born at 25 weeks, 5 days gestation. After starting a non-profit, the Zoe Rose Memorial Foundation in 2008, to offer support services to NICU and bereaved families, she became aware that a collective voice for parents of NICU babies was missing in the Maternal and Infant Health community. In response, she helped launch the Preemie Parent Alliance (PPA) in 2012, where she now serves as President. PPA is a national network of 35 NICU parent support organizations that collaborate to represent the needs and best interests of NICU families in a variety of ways. Ms. Sorrells believes a trusting parent-provider relationship is crucial to build a foundation of empowerment and support on which NICU families thrive well beyond discharge, no matter what the ultimate outcome may be.

Dr Nils Bergman calls himself a Public Health Physician, and currently promotes and researches skin-to-skin contact on a fulltime basis.

He is an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and a research affiliate of the South African Medical Research Council.

Dr. Bergman was born in Sweden and raised in Zimbabwe, where he also later worked as a mission doctor. He received his medical degree (MB ChB) at the University of Cape Town, and later a Masters in Public Health at the University of the Western Cape. During his years in Zimbabwe he completed a doctoral dissertation (MD, equivalent to PhD) on scorpion stings. He has worked in rural South Africa, Zimbabwe and Sweden, and his last posting was Senior Medical Superintendent of Mowbray Maternity Hospital in Cape Town, overseeing 18000 births per year.

He enjoys sharing the wildlife of Africa with his wife and three youngsters.

Dr. Narvey began his training in Pediatrics at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg where he completed a year of further training in Neonatology. This was followed by two years of Neonatal fellowship at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Afterwards he began his career as a Neonatologist in the same city and over the 6 years he spent there, his career included both clinical and administrative duties including 4 years as the Fellowship Program Director and two years as the Medical Director for a level II unit. In late 2010 he accepted a position in Winnipeg to become the Section Head of Neonatology and continues to hold this post. In 2016 he took on the additional role of Medical Director of the Child Health Transport Team. In 2015 he became a member of the Canadian Pediatric Society’s Fetus and Newborn Committee and in 2019 took over as Chair of the same. His interests predominantly lie in the use of non-invasive technology to minimize painful procedures during an infants stay in the NICU. He is active on social media and has a passion for fundraising and is an active board member of the Children’s Hospital Foundation of Manitoba.