Mercy in the News

Toledo, OH.  The Ohio Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (OAAP) selected Pamela Oatis, MD, as the 2011 recipient of the Elizabeth Spencer Ruppert Outstanding Pediatrician award. This award is the highest honor bestowed by the OAAP and recognizes a pediatrician’s distinguished achievements and outstanding contributions to the advancement of pediatric care and education for patients and physicians of Ohio.

 

“In reviewing candidates for the Elizabeth Spencer Ruppert Outstanding Pediatrician award, Pam Oatis was a clear choice,” said Gerald Tiberio, MD, President of the Board of Directors, Ohio Chapter, American Academy of Pediatrics. “I have had the opportunity to chair the CATCH (Community Access to Child Health) program and provide oversight to the Healthy Tomorrows program as well. To my knowledge, no other individual has received two CATCH grants and two Healthy Tomorrows implementation grants – a most noteworthy achievement. Pam’s commitment to pediatric care is unequaled. She provides inspiration to all those who care for children.”

Dr. Oatis has been a physician with Mercy for 30 years. After beginning a Master’s program in Physical Therapy at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., she earned her Medical Degree at the former Medical College of Ohio (now the University of Toledo College of Medicine). She completed an internship at the former MCO and then a pediatric residency at Pittsburgh Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh, PA.

Upon returning to Toledo, Dr. Oatis began working as a Primary Care Pediatrician with the Pediatric Group at Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center Family Care Center. She became the Medical Director of Ethics for Mercy Children’s Hospital in 1990 and assumed the role of Medical Director, Maternal Child Pediatric Palliative Care and also became the Medical Specialist for Ethics at St. V’s in 2005. She has led several hundred workshops, support groups and classes for women, men, young people and parents; presented at national and international conferences; serves on the CORE Clinical Faculty, Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine; and has overseen multiple grants. First was the CATCH Grant to conduct a needs assessment for emotional behavioral health in the outpatient setting, followed by a HRSA/American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Healthy Tomorrows Implementation Grant Providing Emotional Behavioral Health Services to two primary care settings. The next CATCH Grant, for which Dr. Oatis collaborated with Warren Kleinberg, MD, was a Pediatric Palliative Care Needs Assessment for physicians in Ohio and parent focus groups in Toledo. Again, that CATCH was followed by a five-year Healthy Tomorrows Grant called Hospital to Medical Home, which is now in year three. Most recently, her team, in partnership with the Bureau for Children with Medical Handicaps and Family Voices, was awarded the HRSA Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs Implementation Grant for the state of Ohio in order to train 700 providers in the model of medical home education/coaching and a listening based communication tool — Listening with Connection — used here at Mercy.  
 

Dr. Oatis was the intitiating physician champion for the Medical-Legal Partnership for Children; an AAP Medical Home and Bright Futures trainee and advocate; a teacher and regional leader of Re-evaluation Counseling, a community peer listening project; and is a certified instructor of Building Emotional Understanding from the international Hand in Hand Parenting organization based in Palo Alto, Calif. For recreation, she competes in Olympic distance triathlons and placed fifth in her age group at the US nationals in 2010 and 23^rd in the world in 2009.