NICU Nutrition & Feeding Online Course(s) & Continuing Education

M. Petrea Cober, PharmD, BCNSP, BCPPS, attended the University of Tennessee, College of Pharmacy in Memphis, Tennessee. She completed her PGY1 Pharmacy Residency at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and her PGY2 Pharmacy Residency in Pediatrics at the University of Michigan Hospitals and Health System in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She is currently the Clinical Coordinator - Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and PGY1 Residency Program Director at Akron Children's Hospital where she provides clinical services and precepts pharmacy students, PGY1 pharmacy residents, and PGY3 medical pediatric residents. She is also the Section Lead for Specialty Care and an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice at Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED). Her didactic teaching is in the areas of pediatrics, women’s health, and nutrition. Dr. Cober's expertise is in pediatric pharmacotherapy, nutrition, ethanol lock therapy, and management of patients with intestinal failure. She is active in local, state, and national pharmacy organizations.

Prof EL-Khuffash is a Consultant Neonatologist and Paediatrician. He is a Clinical Professor of Paediatrics at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He is a qualified International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. His two primary clinical and research areas of expertise are heart function in neonates and the promotion of breast feeding, and breast feeding support to new mothers.He also has extensive expertise in general feeding issues encountered by babies over the first few months.

Prof EL-Khuffash sees families for antenatal breast feeding and fetal anomaly consultations and postnatal infant assessment, 2 and 6 week checks, and breastfeeding/general support including early irritability and reflux. Prof EL-Khuffash has considerable knowledge of breast feeding medicine and experience in providing antenatal and postnatal breast feeding advice and support to new mothers. This includes identifying and addressing challenges to breastfeeding in both the mother and the baby. He also specialises in general feeding difficulties and early feeding issues encountered by babies.

Prof EL-Khuffash graduated from Trinity College, Dublin in 2002 and enrolled in the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland paediatric specialist training scheme in 2005. He completed a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree in University College, Dublin in 2008 and his neonatal specialty training in Toronto, Canada (2009- 2011). Following this, he was appointed as a consultant Neonatologist and Assistant Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto in January of 2011. He obtained a diploma in clinical epidemiology during his time in Toronto. He is the recipient of several national and international research awards.

Dr. Brigit Carter, Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion, joined the Duke University School of Nursing (DUSON) in 2010. From 2015-2018 she served as the Director of the DUSON Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) program. Dr. Carter earned her BSN at North Carolina Central University in 1998, a Master of Science in Nursing Education from University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2002 and PhD in Nursing from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2009. She served as project director for two HRSA Nursing Workforce Diversity grants. The current grant, The Academy for Academic and Social Enrichment and Leadership Development for Health Equity II, focus is to increase underrepresented minorities in nursing and understanding of individual social determinants among undergraduate nursing students. Dr. Carter teaches the DNP and ABSN programs.
Dr. Carter's clinical research focuses on nursing care of premature infants (<1500 grams) with feeding intolerance and identification of measurable methods for early detection of feeding intolerance. She continues her clinical practice as a staff nurse in the Duke University Hospital Intensive Care Nursery, where she has 21 years’ experience.
Dr. Carter retired in 1/2018 from the U.S. Navy as a Commander after 28 years of service.

Mari is currently a clinical academic working at Evelina London Children's Hospital in the UK. She is a Clinical Specialist Speech Language Therapist with various international peer reviewed articles on neonatal feeding assessment building on the body of research presented in her PhD. She has presented at various international conferences in the USA, Africa and Europe. Her experience entails paediatric dysphagia in the acute setting with specialization in critical care and neonatal care. In her previous position as an associate professor at a university in South Africa she invested in student clinician training in the NICU setting and access to evidence based treatment for feeding disorders in infancy. Her current research interest is in mobile health application development for the Neonatal Feeding Assessment Scale for international access to a validated neonatal feeding assessment tool to identify oropharyngeal dysphagia in neonates and young infants. In addition her second tier research path is looking at the role of the speech language therapist in PICU. To support the wider clinical and scientific community she is a member of the European Society for Swallowing Disorders as well as an international affiliate member of the Royal College of Speech Language Therapists.

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.

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.

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.

Kathy Gura is the manager for Pharmacy Clinical Research Program and a clinical pharmacist with the Clinical Nutrition Service in the Division of GI/Nutrition at Boston Children's Hospital. She is also an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and an adjunct member of the faculty at MCPHS University, Northeastern University and the University of Connecticut. She is a member of the Center for Advanced Intestinal Rehabilitation and the Home PN Program at Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Gura received her BS and Pharm.D from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Boston. Certified as a Nutritional Support Pharmacist, Dr. Gura is a Fellow of the ASHP, ASPEN, PPA and MSHP. She was recently named the 2020 Nutrition Champion by the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition. Dr. Gura is the author of numerous book chapters on pediatric nutrition and has written more than 130 peer reviewed on topics such as the intestinal failure associated liver disease, clinical practice guidelines for parenteral nutrition, and the use of parenteral nutrition in the neonate. She currently serves as an associate editor for JPEN.