Faculty and Staff Advocacy

Amplifying the lived experience of the families we serve

Clinical care opens our eyes to a wide range of social needs that directly affect our patients and their health outcomes. Department of Pediatrics faculty are honored and eager to advocate for the best interests of children at the local, state, and federal levels to create positive change on a grand scale.

Involvement with state and national pediatric organizations

Texas Pediatric Society

The Texas Pediatric Society (TPS) is the Texas chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The McGovern Medical School Department of Pediatrics has been heavily involved with TPS for more than a decade with multiple faculty in leadership roles, serving on major committees, and receiving awards and recognitions for their outstanding contributions.

For example, Vice Chair of Advocacy Sandy McKay, MD, FAAP, serves on the TPS executive board (external link) and has chaired the Executive Legislative Committee (external link), of which she, Associate Professor Zoabe Hafeez, MD, and Associate Professor Sheela Gavvala, DO, FAAP, are active members. Assistant Professor Melissa Kwan, MD, FAAP, chairs the Injury Prevention Committee, and Dr. McKay, Dr. Hafeez, and Dr. Gavvala are members. Child Safety and Integrated Care Division Chief Associate Professor Michelle Ruda, MD, co-chairs the Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect and Professor Kim Cheung, MD, PhD, is a member. Sports medicine expert Assistant Professor Charles Boren, DO, CAQSM, is on the Sports Medicine Committee; and Professor and Vice Dean for Educational Programs Mark Hormann, MD, is a past board member.

Dr. Kwan received the Early Career Physician of the Year Award in 2024 and Dr. McKay received the Mary Greene-Noble Special Achievement Award in 2020. Each year we send a large group of attendees, trainees, and presenters to the TPS Annual Meeting to showcase their work. UTHealth Houston is consistently known for our strong showing.

American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)

Dr. Kwan and Dr. McKay were elected to the Executive Committee for the Council on Injury, Violence and Poison Prevention (external link). Assistant Professor Michael Petrus-Jones, DO, MEd, MPH, MS, serves as co-associate director of AAP Community Pediatrics Training Initiative. Dr. Petrus-Jones also helped develop the Community Health and Advocacy Milestones Profile (CHAMP) (external link), a peer-reviewed tool that links CPTI gold-standard training objectives to Milestones-based competencies as defined by the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) curriculum.