{"id":25015,"date":"2017-06-30T03:41:01","date_gmt":"2017-06-30T10:41:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=25015"},"modified":"2017-06-29T22:58:53","modified_gmt":"2017-06-30T05:58:53","slug":"pediatric-leaps-and-bounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2017\/06\/30\/pediatric-leaps-and-bounds\/","title":{"rendered":"Pediatric leaps and bounds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Artist Pnina Granirer signs copies of her book Light Within the Shadows: An Artist\u2019s Memoir<\/em> at its May 25 launch at Lord Byng High School. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

In every community, there are folks who frequently capture the spotlight for their work while others quietly get things done behind the scenes. In our Kibitz & Schmooze profile, we try to highlight members of our community who are doing admirable and mention-worthy work out of view of the general public. If you know of profile subjects who fit this description, please email laurenkramer@shaw.ca<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

We all love a quick turnaround, but when it involves a transition from illness to health, it\u2019s especially meaningful. That\u2019s one of the things Erik Swartz loves about his career as a pediatrician at Richmond Hospital, where he attends complicated deliveries, looks after preemies in the neonatal intensive care unit and sees outpatients at the Child Health Centre. \u201cChildren get sick very quickly, but they also recover very quickly,\u201d he notes quietly. \u201cIt\u2019s very gratifying, as a doctor, to see how quickly their health improves.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Erik Swartz (photo by Lauren Kramer)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Swartz, 43, is a homegrown Vancouverite who attended Vancouver Talmud Torah, Eric Hamber Secondary and then studied pharmacology and medicine at the University of British Columbia. After graduating, he specialized in pediatrics in Edmonton and worked in that city until 2008.<\/p>\n

It was a great time, he recalls wistfully. \u201cOur friends there were like family, and the training I got there, the professional environment, was wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Swartz, always one to say an enthusiastic \u201cyes!\u201d when opportunity comes a-knocking, also had a weekly segment on Edmonton\u2019s Global Morning News<\/em>, where he\u2019d answer questions from parents worried about their kids\u2019 health. \u201cFor awhile, I was a C-list celebrity,\u201d he says with a laugh.<\/p>\n

Family ties and a great job opportunity enticed him back to Vancouver, where he remains today with his wife and two daughters. At work, he wears a number of different hats. When he\u2019s not at Richmond Hospital, you\u2019ll find him at B.C. Children\u2019s, where he works in the pediatric emergency department and attends inpatients at the clinical teaching units. He also heads pediatrics for Vancouver Coastal Health and Providence Health Care, a position that involves overseeing physicians in a wide geographic area \u2013 from Lions Gate and St. Paul\u2019s hospitals to clinics further afield in Powell River and Bella Coola. \u201cIf a child comes into a hospital in Sechelt and there are issues, we troubleshoot what happened from an administrative point of view,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

There are \u201cbig picture\u201d guys and \u201csmall picture\u201d guys in every field, but Swartz is both. He helped bring the Pediatric Early Warning System, PEWS, to the Richmond Hospital emergency room a few years ago. Children admitted to the hospital receive a PEWS score, which determines the level of monitoring and care they\u2019ll need. \u201cIt\u2019s our attempt at figuring out which children are going to deteriorate before that happens, so we can mitigate the risk,\u201d he explains. Swartz and his team were the first to use PEWS successfully in an ER setting in British Columbia and, possibly, in all of Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a hospital that is not used to looking after many children, the PEWS score is a number that clearly identifies how sick that kid is,\u201d he notes. \u201cWe assessed the confidence and knowledge levels of staff before we introduced PEWS and reassessed them after its introduction and, by comparing those results, we can see it\u2019s been a wild success. Because of that, the whole province is wanting to introduce it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Swartz\u2019s work is his passion, and his dedication to improving care on a systemic level is remarkable. He decompresses from his days training for half-marathons, but says his life is filled with \u201caha moments\u201d that make everything seem purposeful and worthwhile. \u201cI\u2019m often called out in the middle of the night when a baby is born with a low heart rate and isn\u2019t breathing,\u201d he reflects. \u201cTo do the appropriate things in five to 10 minutes and see the improvements, you feel really satisfied that a few minutes of your life changed the trajectory of another family\u2019s life forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lauren Kramer<\/strong>, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

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Art! Vancouver included the work of Johanan Herson (second from the right in the above photo) and Lauren Morris (third from the right in the photo below) from May 25 to 27 at Vancouver Convention Centre-West. (photos by Cynthia Ramsay)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Lior Noyman, left, Dan Gadassi and moderator Shula Klinger field questions from the audience after the June 5 screening of a documentary film capturing some of the memories Vancouverites have of the Six Day War. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"photo<\/a>
Noam Vazana was joined by Itamar Erez (not seen in photo) at a Caravan World Rhythms performance at Frankie\u2019s Jazz Club June 7.\u00a0(photo by Cynthia Ramsay)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artist Pnina Granirer signs copies of her book Light Within the Shadows: An Artist\u2019s Memoir at its May 25 launch at Lord Byng High School. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay) *** In every community, there are folks who frequently capture the spotlight for their work while others quietly get things done behind the scenes. In our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7212,6977,5598,7213],"class_list":["post-25015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-erik-swartz","tag-healthcare","tag-pediatrics","tag-richmond-hospital"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}