Meet Renee Jenkins, the AAP’s new president-elect

September 2006

Q and A

What is leadership, and what constitutes a great leader?

Great leaders are able to listen and serve the needs of the people they are leading. Leaders need to be sure that they communicate well as they move forward in leadership. Very often, we make assumptions about what we are doing and how people interpret it, and sometimes those assumptions are not correct. Staying in communication as you move forward with an agenda in an organization is important.

It is also important to develop young people as leaders as you move along. The mentorship element of leadership is a key responsibility for people in leadership positions.

It is also important for leaders to look at how they can grow. When you get to a leadership position it is not an end. It is a journey that you are continuing on. It is important for leaders as they lead to hone their leadership skills and be willing to make adjustments.

What qualities and skills do you possess to help you in your position as president of the AAP?

I understand the importance of moving to the large contextual issue. We have to look at what is happening to children in the context of health, but also we have to look at children in the context of school and family life.

There are lots of issues that contribute to the optimal outcome for children. I have a real appreciation for that and I have worked during my career with people from other disciplines who also work with children.

I have fairly good communication skills. I value highly my ability to listen and I have found people see me as approachable. That last point is important because you never want to be seen as a leader that people cannot come up to and say either what they feel or say they need help with something.

How will your past experience help guide you as an AAP president?

I have been a leader in the AAP. I was the chair of a national committee before. I have been president of my local chapter. I have been on a number of other national committees and work groups, as well as a member of the CEO search committee of AAP. That really gives you a sense of understanding the organization from a larger perspective.

I have also worked on other organizations in leadership positions. I have been president of the Society for Adolescent Medicine, and the section chair for the National Medical Association. Those are all leadership positions in the pediatric community, and it has helped me build relationships as well as perspective on some of the issues that the academy faces.

How has being an African American shaped your career in medicine?

I have had good mentorship from other leaders who are African American. My first chair, Melvin Jenkins, was an endocrinologist and vice president of the American Board of Pediatrics. He really stressed to me the need to move forward in organizational pediatrics, and to make sure that I did not see being African American as a negative factor that could hold me back. He gave me a lot of confidence in moving forward with organizations.

Other mentors of mine stressed that as well. These types of people really took an interest in me, and also gave me what they felt was good leadership advice as I moved forward.

When you are an African American, you have an extra lens to see things through, and you are aware of the need to always address issues that are particular to minorities as you move forward. There were times when speaking up like that got more attention to those perspectives.

What is your proudest accomplishment in pediatric health?

I am most proud of being able to grow people in leadership through our residency training program. I have contributed to the career development of a number of young people, and when I go places and see them, or when they come here to do either grand rounds or conferences, that is long lasting in terms of the kind of accomplishments that I feel good about.

What are the biggest challenges on the horizon for the AAP in the coming year?

The first one is the Deficit Reduction Act and its effect on Medicaid. The states now have a lot more flexibility to do things that may not be in the best interest of children. We need to get to people at the state level and give them the resources to approach their Medicaid commissioners and state legislatures and governors, about what the effect might be from the changes that they recommend.

There are also practice issues that are changing that we are going to be challenged with, like the minute clinics and other commercial clinical, urgent care services at places like Wal-Mart and Walgreens. Our colleagues in practice are very concerned about what kind of effect that is going to have on their practice, but also what kind of effect it is going to have on children.

We will also be looking at the onslaught of new vaccines and the associated cost and expenses, especially if the children are not covered by the Vaccine for Children Act, or if a state doesn’t have universal vaccine purchase. That could get really expensive for practitioners in terms of stocking and shelf life. There will also be practice issues I cannot yet predict. I have heard from so many of my former colleagues who say, ‘Congratulations and by the way, how are we going to handle this?’

There will always be practice issues and challenges for the academy, but there will also be challenges in how people get health care. We are going to be looking at how we can get any sort of universal health insurance for children. We will be looking at the models in Massachusetts and Illinois. These are going to be important to us in terms of how those states perform in opening up access to children.

What is your role during this period of transition?

My role is to pay attention and to learn from the people who are currently on the board and the current president and president-elect. There is a lot to learn about what is going on in the academy and what is going on in pediatrics that were not always issues for me.

What are some of your short-term goals at AAP?

To really bring a little life, and in some ways practicality, to the issue of health equity, which is part of our strategic plan, but not spelled out well.

There have been two groups within the academy who have been working on it: The Council on Community Pediatrics and the Committee on Pediatric Research. In the short term, I would like to work with those people to really come up with a plan we can understand and work with.

Long-term goals?

I am committed to working with the board and the leadership to come up with a national agenda for children. If you asked where the road map is in this country for optimizing children’s health, I do not think you could find it.

There are some states that are looking at it from their unique perspectives and they very often have children’s cabinets, like in New Mexico, but I do not think we have yet raised it to the level of what we should be doing nationally.

With respect to the other entities that I talked about before that are part of children’s lives, we are going to need to work with leaders in education and school health as well as leaders in housing and family issues in order to really come up with something that is comprehensive.

Will you be working on the legislative front? What sorts of issues will be on the agenda?

Here in Washington, I have worked on the Committee for Government Affairs, so I have some history of testifying before committees, working with legislators, press conferences and such. Some of the issues we already know about, such as Medicaid, the Deficit Reduction Act changes, and other financing of health care issues.

Another issue is graduate medical education (GME) funding. Children’s hospitals do not get the same GME that general hospitals get. Every year that is up for grabs again. I am also paying attention to reproductive health issues as they affect adolescents, and we will be watching the kind of legislation that comes and goes around that.

There are some things that I will not know about until the issues surface. The Washington, D.C. office of the academy is tuned into all types of issues, and they stay poised to weigh in on what they feel are key children’s health issues.

Do you plan to partner with other public health organizations?

We already work through the American Medical Association with organizations like the Academy of Family Physicians as well as the OBGYN doctors.

I went to a meeting about three weeks ago with the pediatric dentists. We work on oral health issues in partnership with them, and I am going to a media event next week to talk about the sugar content of sodas and soft drinks in schools in collaboration with the dentists.

We work with anyone who is concerned about the health of children.

How will vaccines fit into AAP’s agenda?

Vaccines are huge because now there are so many of them. We have seen a lot of the vaccines with very good safety profiles, and the federal organizations pass them into the vaccine schedule as a result of what they see in research. However, there are issues that are not well addressed at that time like financing and supply and the provider, whether it is a family doctor or a pediatrician, gets caught up in some really bad economic situations that have not been well studied.

For example, consider the meningitis vaccine. MCV4 (Menactra, Sanofi-Pasteur), that was approved for 11-year-olds and 12-year-olds, and then for people going to college who would be staying in dorms. Now we do not have enough vaccine for the routine vaccination of younger kids. All we are doing is vaccinating these kids going to college, and we appear to be running out of vaccine for that.

There are lots of issues that have to be looked at from a logistic and practical point of view that an organization like the AAP has to be able to help its members with.

The AAP recently supported universal health care for children. How will you move that forward?

We have a MediKids model bill and we will continue to try to get sponsors for that bill as well as to look at other bills that people have put forward. We will work in a legislative capacity to look at new bills and try to get more people to sign on to our bill.

I know there are members of the organization who really want us to go to universal health insurance for everybody. That is the ultimate goal, but the question is, can we get there incrementally, or should we all just wait for the big pie? It is not expensive to cover children. Children need to be covered. We are one of the few industrialized countries that does not cover its children and we ought to be embarrassed.

What would you like your legacy as AAP president to be?

If we could get a bill that covers children before I step down in two-and-a-half years, I would love that. That would make a huge difference in the disparity issue I was talking about.

We have already been able to show if you offer a State Children’s Health Insurance Program it penetrates the community well. You can diminish, if not erase, child health disparities in terms of access to immunizations and primary care in the medical home. Access is really a key issue, and if during my tenure I can work with the leadership to accomplish that it would be a tremendous legacy.

Final thoughts?

I hope to bring more pediatricians under the umbrella of the academy. I want to increase the value of the academy to minority members, and to have people understand that even though the academy grants fellowship status to pediatricians who are board certified, it also has membership categories for people who are not board certified.

We need to all get under a tent and really be able to push these children’s issues forward together.