What I’d like to highlight is how pediatric hospitalists can follow their adult hospitalist brothers and sisters into the role of being leaders … in how to handle challenges that their hospitals face.
—Weijen Chang, MD, SFHM, FAAP
Next month, readers of The Hospitalist will see a new face alongside the monthly “Pediatric HM Literature” column. Weijen Chang, MD, SFHM, FAAP, has been selected its new pediatric editor. Next month Dr. Chang takes over for Mark Shen, MD, SFHM, the magazine’s pediatric editor since 2010.
Dr. Chang attended Duke University’s medicine-pediatrics residency program in Durham, N.C., after graduating from New York Medical College in Valhalla, N.Y. He serves as health sciences associate clinical professor of medicine and pediatrics at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, and serves as a hospitalist at both UCSD Medical Center and Rady Children’s Hospital, just across town from UCSD.
As pediatric editor, Dr. Chang hopes to help grow the field of pediatric hospital medicine, just as adult HM has grown over the last decade.
“In the past 10 years of HM being in existence, I think adult hospitalists have gone from being a fill-in-type player to really being leaders in their institutions,” he says, “and I think pediatric hospitalists are beginning to fill that role. What I’d like to highlight is how pediatric hospitalists can follow their adult hospitalist brothers and sisters into the role of being leaders … in how to handle challenges that their hospitals face.”
Danielle Scheurer, MD, MSCR, SFHM, The Hospitalist’s physician editor, echoed Dr. Change’s enthusiasm. “We are thrilled to have Weijen Chang as our new pediatric editor,” Dr. Scheurer says. “He is a long-time member of Team Hospitalist, active SHM member, and a respected mentor in the pediatric hospitalist community. He will bring insight and depth to the pediatric HM community. We are lucky to be able to recruit him to this position.”
Dr. Chang says he’s looking forward to his new role and new contacts he will be making. He recently joined SHM’s Pediatrics Committee, and will continue engagement with Team Hospitalist, the magazine’s editorial advisory board.
“I’m really excited to get the chance to contact other pediatric hospitalists around the country to gauge opinions about various issues that we face,” Dr. Chang says. “For me, the most exciting part is having an excuse to call people to see what’s going on in their institutions. As hospitalists, we’re so focused on what happens within our walls that we don’t get to see what’s happening elsewhere.”
Michael O’Neal is a freelance writer in New York.